


Home Shitty Home

by JCapasso



Series: Alternative Haven [2]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Audrey wakes up back in the world that she'd left behind and has to deal with the troubles while trying to mourn her family that never existed.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker
Series: Alternative Haven [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025788
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

Audrey’s eyes snapped open as she sat up with a start. She had just been sitting in the pew at church. How had she gotten… “Hey? You okay?” she heard a voice from beside her and turned to see…Nathan…young…oh god. “What are you wearing?” he asked confused. 

“No…” Audrey breathed out in denial. “No, no, no, no, no,” she chanted closing her eyes and hugging her knees to her chest like that could make this not real. A horrible nightmare. 

“Audrey?” Nathan asked even more worried as he sat up next to her, only be knocked back down as she bolted out of bed for the bathroom and started puking her guts out in the toilet. Nathan got up and went to the door and asked, “Audrey are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she called miserably. “I just…want to be alone for a while. Please.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes!” she snapped, and then felt bad for it right away. It wasn’t Nathan’s fault. “Sorry. But yeah. Just…I need some time alone.” 

“Okay. I guess I’ll head home then…” Nathan said confused. “You’ll call me if you need anything?” 

“Yeah. I will,” she lied. Nothing that she needed he could help with anyway. She heard him leave just as her stomach had nothing left to empty, but she didn’t move from the bathroom floor and hugged her knees to her chest again in her too large now clothes and sobbed. She’d lost everything. Her husband. Her children. Her grandchildren. They were worse than dead. They’d ceased to exist. Her entire world had just come crashing down around her ears. They had been so sure…but maybe it was just wishful thinking. Wanting to keep a world where everyone was safe and happy. And now she’d lost it all. And no one else would understand. Or remember. Unless…the trouble that had created that world in the first place. He would still know at least. And maybe they could bring it back. All of it. God, what was his name. It had been so long ago. Over forty years. How the heck was she supposed to remember the name of someone that she had talked to once that long ago? Damnit. 

She wracked her brain for two hours before it came to her. Cliff. That was his name. She reached into her purse instinctively to grab her phone and pulled it out only to have no service. That’s right. That type of phone hadn’t even been invented. When she went to put it back her hands found something else and her tears started again. Her photo album. The small one that she’d taken to carrying around with her. She pulled it out and flipped through, seeing that all the pictures were still there and then she hugged it to her chest. At least she still had something of them. Something to remember them by. So that she would never forget their faces. She picked herself up off the floor and went looking for her real phone. The one from this time. Once she found it she called Nathan. “I do actually need something if you don’t mind.”

“What is it?” he asked in a tone that clearly conveyed the message ‘anything’. 

“There was a woman who was hurt in the volcano…I think she died. She had a husband named Cliff. I need you to find him. Please.”

“Yeah okay. I’ll get right on it and call you back. Hey…Are you okay?” 

“Physically, yes, but otherwise, no…I’m really not. Just find Cliff, okay? Please?” 

“Okay. We’ll talk later?” 

“Thanks Nathan,” she said, ignoring his question as she hung up. She started to pace the room before huffing at her now baggy clothes. She had put on a little bit of weight in her old age and now her clothes didn’t fit. She hesitated for a long moment before she went to change and then hugged the wool coat to her chest. The side of it still smelled like Duke from where she’d been leaning against him. The musky sandalwood and brine mixture that was so uniquely Duke. She sat down an grabbed her album and started looking through the pictures, trailing her no longer shriveled wrinkly fingers over the faces of her loved ones as the tears leaked from her eyes. Cliff could fix it. He had to. She refused to consider the alternative. 

It was a long time before her phone rang. The sun was just starting to come up. “Nathan? Did you find him? Let me talk to him.” 

“I’m sorry, Audrey. He’s dead,” Nathan said sadly. 

“What? How? Why?” she asked brokenly. 

“It looks like suicide, but we’ll make sure. There’s a note here addressed to you. Do you want me to bring it by?” 

“Yeah…wait no, just read it to me…no wait…yeah bring it by. Thanks,” she finally decided. She didn’t want to have to explain everything right now and if there was enough in that note to give Nathan a hint, he wouldn’t let it go until he knew everything, and she couldn’t take that. No, best that she read the letter herself. When she heard the knock at her door, she opened it just enough to reach out and take the letter from his hand and then closed it back. She stood there long enough to hear him pacing outside the door for a few minutes before he apparently decided to leave. She went and sat down to read the letter. 

Detective Parker,  
I’m sorry. I hoped that world would stay after my death as I’m sure you did too, but it seems that it didn’t. I considered trying to bring it back, but you know how the troubles are. There’s always a downside. Even if I could, it would just start it over again and what would be the point? But I can’t live in this world again either. I created that one because I lost my wife. There I managed to move on. Get married. Have a family. I died in the hospital surrounded by my family and then woke up back here. Without them. Suzy gone. Back with the troubles. If anyone can understand this, it would be you. I died happy after a long peaceful life in that world. I refuse to live in this one. I hope you handle this better than me.   
Sorry,  
Cliff

Audrey clutched the letter so tightly in her fist that her knuckles turned white, not even caring that she was crumpling the paper as her tears fell fast and heavy again. There went her last hope. It was over. Cliff hadn’t even had any children in this world so even if she /would/ consider activating their trouble and getting them to wish it back it wasn’t an option. And like Cliff said in the note. That would just start it over anyway. It wouldn’t bring back her babies. How the hell was she supposed to go on like this? She wished she could do the same as Cliff and just escape it that way, but she knew that she could never bring herself to do that. She curled up and cried herself to sleep, the letter and her precious album clutched to her chest. 

Audrey was woken up by a knock on the door and sighed heavily when she heard Nathan’s voice say that they had a case. “Give me a few minutes,” she called back and dragged herself up. She changed into something more work appropriate and ran a brush through her hair. She didn’t bother with makeup or anything and she hesitated for a long moment before she tore herself away from the album and the note and put them in the drawer of her bedside table and then headed out the door. 

“Audrey, are you okay?” Nathan asked worriedly as she came out. 

“What do we have?” she asked ignoring the question. 

“There was a break-in at the market,” he told her as they got in the bronco. “One of the cashiers was killed and another is on the way to the hospital with stab wounds. It doesn’t /look/ like a trouble.” That didn’t mean it wasn’t one but he knew that she would get that. 

Audrey resisted the urge to sigh again. In the entire forty-two years she’d lived in the other Haven, they’d had two murders. Now she was back to it being an everyday thing. The rest of the drive was spent going over the facts Nathan had so far, and then collecting evidence at the scene. Any time he tried to ask her if she was okay, she just ignored it. There was more than once that she made the kind of joke or banter that she would have when Duke was her partner. It had been habit for so long. Nathan just looked at her like she had two heads which reminded her where she was and that Duke wasn’t here. 

When they got back to the station to go over the evidence, she went to /her/ desk and sat down, not taking her eyes off the file in her hand to look at what she was doing. “Audrey?” Nathan asked confused. 

“Hmm?” she asked, and then looked up, realizing that this wasn’t her desk and winced. “Right. Sorry.” She got up and moved. 

“What’s going on with you today?” he asked worriedly. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she huffed. As if that wasn’t perfectly clear already. 

“Are you mad at me? Did I do something?” 

“No, Nathan,” she sighed. “You didn’t do anything. I’m sorry. I’m just…a little out of it today. You’re fine.” From there they worked mostly in silence, other than talking about the facts of the case, but Audrey was fully aware of Nathan’s frequent scrutinizing gaze and just ignored it. It was about two hours after /normal/ quitting time before she said, “Well it looks like we’ve hit a dead end here. We’ll just pick it up in the morning.”

“Ooookay,” Nathan said as confused as ever. Since when did she not work through the night if necessary on an active case. It was kinda their thing. “I’ll run you home?” 

Audrey hesitated a moment before nodding. “Yeah, okay. That’d be great.” She’d forgotten that he picked her up and she didn’t have her car here. Not to mention the Gull was too far to walk which was unfortunate. She could use a nice walk and some fresh air to clear her head. When they got there, Nathan started to get out, but she said, “I’m sorry, Nathan. I just…need to be alone for a while okay?” 

“Yeah…okay,” Nathan said disappointedly as he got back in, but before he could lean over for a kiss she was already out of the truck and he watched despondently as she walked up the stairs. 

Audrey started to go inside, but then stopped and went downstairs. The staff all knew her so when she asked for a whole bottle of bourbon, they just sold it to her without question and she took it back upstairs. She grabbed a glass from her apartment and took it and the bottle out to the balcony. Her feet tucked under her in the wide chair as she sipped the bourbon and looked out over the water…and the Cape Rouge…lost in thought. 

She was pulled from her thoughts by noise and motion on the dock and when she looked down, her breath caught when she saw Duke. Looking so young and radiant. She didn’t even notice Jennifer until he picked her up, laughing, and then kissed her as he set her on the boat and she felt her heart shatter once again. She hadn’t known they were together and wondered how long it had been. She knew that they hadn’t been together when they were dealing with the pressure trouble last week, but maybe after it. Maybe that was why he didn’t leave town like he had planned. She gave him something to stay for. 

She tore her eyes away from the happy couple and returned them to the horizon as she reconciled herself with the knowledge that he was happy. Sure it was without her, but she could live with that. As long as he was happy, that was the most important thing. All she really wanted for him. Maybe Jennifer could be good for him. She realized that she wasn’t even sure how she would feel about being with him herself. Yes, he was still the same man that she’d married all those years ago, but…that Duke had grown. Been a husband, a father, a grandfather. Could they even be considered the same person anymore? Back then it had been easy. He’d been the same age as the Duke she’d known. This was different. She even managed to convince herself of that. It made it easier. At least a little bit. 

Audrey sat outside, drinking slowly enough not to get completely drunk, but was more than a little buzzed. Especially since she hadn’t eaten anything all day. She didn’t go inside until long after the sun went down and she was more than a little chilled. She did made sure to have a tall glass of water before bed. The last thing she needed was trying to solve a murder with a hangover. After her alarm went off the next morning she went through the motions of taking a shower and getting ready in a haze. Her hand twitched towards the still half full bottle of bourbon, but she resisted and just went to work, taking her own car this time. 

Nathan was already there going over the case. Judging by his state, he hadn’t actually gone home last night and she felt a stab of guilt, but ignored it and just asked if he had anything new. She was a bit better about canning the banter, but she still slipped a couple times, getting the same weird looks when she did. She continued ignoring any kind of question of if she was okay and when he suggested they get lunch she almost said she wasn’t hungry, but the decided that maybe he was, so agreed. She only took a few bites and mostly just picked at her food. Everything tasted like ash. Like this world wasn’t even real to her anymore. They finally managed to pick up the every day garden variety murderer by four that afternoon and Audrey worked on the paperwork right up until quitting time and told Nathan she’d finish it tomorrow. “I can come by tonight when I’m done here? Maybe we can grab dinner?” 

“I’m not really hungry,” Audrey shrugged. “Thanks though.” 

“You hardly ate anything at lunch,” he said worriedly. 

“I’m fine. Just one of those days you know?” she brushed it off. 

“Okay…I’ll see you tomorrow then?” 

“Yeah. Tomorrow,” she agreed, and he leaned over to kiss her goodnight. She froze at the feeling before making a halfhearted attempt to return it and pulling away. 

Nathan watched her go, concern mounting. Whatever this was it wasn’t going away and he had no idea what to do. She had never been much for talking out her problems and he was even worse at it. He hesitated for a long moment before pulling out his phone and calling Duke. “Hey, Duke. Can you do me a favor and check on Audrey after she gets home?”

“Why? Is she okay?” 

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know what’s going on with her. She won’t talk to me. I don’t think she’s eating and she’s just…not herself.”

“Okay, but…why me?” Duke asked confused. “I mean, couldn’t you come by and check on her?” 

“I could, but clearly I’m not getting anywhere with her. You’re her friend and you’ve always been good at getting her to open up. Hopefully, you can help her somehow.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll try,” Duke promised, skeptical that he would be able to do any good where her boyfriend had failed. He sent Jennifer a message that he would be home late, and watched out for Audrey to get back. Once she did, he gave her about twenty minutes before heading that way, noticing that she was sitting on the balcony. “You’re worrying your boyfriend you know,” he said lightly as he walked up and leaned lazily on the railing in front of her, very curious about her wince at the word ‘boyfriend’. 

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed, taking a long sip of the bourbon before pouring another glass and holding it out to Duke in offer. 

He took it with a nod of thanks and took a sip of his own as he waited. When he realized that nothing else was forthcoming, he said, “Shall we play twenty questions or are you gonna make it easy on me and tell me what’s wrong?” 

Audrey couldn’t help the amused twitch of her lips before saying, “Since when do I make anything easy?” 

Duke snorted a laugh. “You have a point there,” he admitted. “Okay so…first question…is it about Nathan?” She shook her head. “Well he’ll be glad to hear that.” He watched for her reaction and got another wince. “Are you dumping him?” he asked confused, that being the only conclusion he could jump to after that. 

“I don’t know,” she huffed. “Everything is just…so complicated now.” 

“How so?” Duke asked casually. 

“It’s a Haven thing,” she said, words sounding foreign to her after so long of there not /being/ a Haven thing. 

“Okay…what kind of Haven thing,” Duke prompted. “A trouble mess things up? Change things in ways that we can’t see because we don’t have the magic immunity super power?” 

“Yes and no.”

“See I don’t think you understand the rules of this game,” Duke teased. “You have to choose one.” 

Audrey huffed a laugh and swiped at the tears that had started to fall from her eyes. God, he was just so…Duke. He never changed and somehow he still had that uncanny ability to drag her into conversations that she didn’t want to have. “There was a trouble. A wish trouble. It…He wished the troubles away.”

“Okay…” Duke said leadingly when she stopped. He had no idea where this was going yet. 

“That world was…Haven was so peaceful. Beautiful. Happy. We decided to keep it,” Audrey sighed. 

“Ah. I think I’m starting to get it now,” Duke nodded, reaching over to refill both of their now empty glasses. If this was going where he thought it was, they’d need it. “How long?” 

“Forty-two years,” she said shakily, wiping away some more tears. “We thought…A lot of troubles stay after the troubled person dies…but this…”

“So you came back to the same time it started?” he guessed and she nodded. “And you were happy there?” Apparently they were back to the twenty questions. 

“I…I had a whole life, Duke. A…A husband, three kids, six grandkids with a seventh on the way. A child that will never be born because he’s ceased to exist just like the rest of them. Just like everyone…everything…my whole life,” she choked up. 

Duke slid off the railing and crouched in front of her, putting one hand on her knee and running the other through her hair. “They’ll always exist as long as you remember them,” he said gently. “If you talk about them…you can keep them alive that way.” 

Audrey gave a watery smile as she leaned into his oh so familiar touch. “That’s what dad used to say too.” 

“Dad?” Duke raised an eyebrow curiously. 

“My father-in-law. He was the only dad I ever knew, and he was a great one,” she said wistfully. 

“My dad used to say the same thing. Granted I was six at the time and he was talking about our dog that got put down, but…” Duke chuckled, and Audrey gave a slight laugh. That was something. “So, your husband…who was it? Nathan?” 

“No. Not Nathan,” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Especially since he was sitting in front of her being a good friend before going home to his girlfriend. It was so hard for her not to just close the little bit of distance between them and kiss him senseless. 

“I find it hard to believe that you didn’t go hunting Nathan down first thing as soon as you go there,” he said lightly. “Was he not there or something?” He wondered just how different that world was. 

“No, he was there and I found him the first day, but…”

“But what?” 

“See the thing about that world…some people were just the same as they are here. I mean some differences, but only on the surface, you know? Like Vince and Dave. They were the same guys we know. Just not quite as…haunted. They didn’t carry the same burdens. Garland Wuornos…he was a fisherman and ran the boat rentals at the wharf, but he was still the same person. But some people were /very/ different. Like Max Hansen who was apparently a good guy and raised his son Nathan himself. Nathan was so…different. He was a doctor of all things. And a dweeb,” she chuckled. “Made weird jokes, did impressions and funny voices, and just…wasn’t Nathan. Plus he was already married there and had a daughter.” 

He could understand that. Nathan had a happy life and she didn’t want to interfere. Especially because he wasn’t the same person. “What about me? Was I different too? A rich snob walking around with a bad French accent looking down on all the pleebs?” he joked. 

She snorted amusedly. “No. You were pretty much exactly the same.” A haunted look spread across her face at the memory and she blinked the tears from her eyes again. “It doesn’t matter though. That world is gone.”

Duke realized that she was shutting down and he wasn’t going to get much more information right now, so he dropped it. “You really should tell him about this. I’m sure he’ll understand you needing to get your head together and refind your place in this world.” 

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” she sighed. 

“Do you want me to try?” Duke asked and she nodded. He got why Nathan always had trouble getting through to her, now that he was thinking about it, but it was really pretty simple. You couldn’t approach her head on with hard, serious questions. You just had to poke, wheedle, sidle around it and put her at ease enough to slip things through and then put the pieces together as you went. Nathan was just too blunt to do that, which was why he always hit a brick wall. “Okay. I’ll bite the bullet for you on one condition.”

“What condition?” she narrowed her red-rimmed eyes at him. 

“You have to eat something. There’s a whole restaurant downstairs you know? You even eat free there in case you forgot that little tidbit. You go eat a full meal, and I’ll take care of the hard conversations. Deal?” 

Audrey huffed and nodded. “Okay. Fine.” She’d choke it down somehow if it got her out of this conversation with Nathan. Nathan was always so hard to talk to. 

“Okay good,” Duke stood up, and held out a hand to help her up. “And you know I’m here anytime you want to talk. Tell me about your family. Whatever. Once he understands what’s going on, so will Nathan or Jennifer. I’m sure anyone would, okay?” 

“I’ll keep that in mind. I just…can’t yet, you know?” she sniffled as they walked down the stairs.

“Okay. Whenever you’re ready,” he gave her a reassuring smile. “Now go eat. And I /will/ be getting a report from the waitresses,” he said mock-sternly. 

Audrey let out a watery chuckle. At least he wasn’t taking her booze away. She didn’t know if she could survive without that right now. She went inside and ordered one of her least favorite things that she could still eat. She couldn’t stand the idea of eating her favorites only for them to taste horrible like everything did these days. She also bought another bottle of bourbon while she was down there, knowing that she was going to get a teasing comment from Duke about it being a bar not a liquor store, but she didn’t feel like going anywhere else right now. 

Nathan hung up the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose. It all made sense now. Her waking up in different clothes that he’d never seen and didn’t quite fit her right. The tears, the sick feeling, her demeanor. All the slips into jokes and banter that he just didn’t get. Apparently whoever her partner was in that world did. And she had been married…and not to him…for something like forty years. No wonder she was a mess. He wished she’d talked to him though. Even if she talked to Duke first, he should have heard it from her. Duke had warned him not to make an issue of it, and he wasn’t going to, but he still hated it. He just didn’t understand how Duke was able to relate to her so easily. He’d come to terms with that fact a long time ago and come to accept their friendship as it was, but sometimes it was hard not to be bitter and insecure about it, and this was one of those times. 

Nathan stayed late and finished up her paperwork along with his. Since she was avoiding him he had nothing better to do and if he could ease her burdens a bit right now, he would do it. Even if she did end up breaking up with him. He hoped that she didn’t. That she could bring herself to move on and they could get back what they had, but he knew it was a long shot. You don’t get over losing a husband of four decades that easily. Not to mention losing your kids and grandkids at the same time. He knew that his relationship was probably over and he should have expected it. They had just finally found each other, but he could never have anything good for long. He wouldn’t be the one to end it though. He wasn’t going to be the one to walk away. 

The next day, Nathan kept his distance on a personal level and kept it to a friendly professional and he could see her relaxing slightly as the day went on as she realized that he wasn’t going to push anything. At the end of the day before she left though, he at least had to say, “I get what you’re going through and I’ll give you all the space you need, but know that…if you want to talk…about /anything/…I’m here.”

“Thanks, Nathan,” she said with a grateful smile. “I appreciate it. Just…not yet, okay?” 

“Okay,” he nodded in acceptance with a slight smile of his own. That was the most he’d managed to get from her in days and it made him feel at least a little better. 

Audrey was sitting on her balcony again with her now ever-present glass of bourbon. It was Friday night now, so she wasn’t bothering to pace herself as much. Barring an emergency, she didn’t have to work tomorrow. She’d been home about an hour when Duke came up. She didn’t even give him a chance to speak before she asked, “Hey, can you recommend a good tattoo artist?” 

Duke raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? I mean…that’s not normally something you want to do when you’re…not really yourself.”

“I’m sure, Duke. Please,” she said impatiently. 

“You eat today?” he asked curiously. 

Audrey huffed. “If I promise to go eat, will you give me the info?”

“I suppose I can live with that deal,” he smirked and made sure to get the promise from her first before he gave her the info for a local artist that he knew a few towns over. The one that had done his first tattoo. The others had been gotten in different places all over the world and he didn’t think she wanted to travel to Japan or Brazil or such for a tattoo. “Just…try not to do anything you’re going to regret okay?” he asked hopefully. It wasn’t like she couldn’t go find one on her own and at least this way he could get a promise to eat from her and make sure that she went to someone decent if she did. 

“I won’t,” she assured him as she got up and headed downstairs.

Duke was torn. As much as he wanted to try and talk to her a little more and make sure she was doing okay…as much as she could be…he and Jennifer had plans. Eventually Jennifer won out. If Audrey had been worse off, then it would have been a different story, but he looked in on the Gull before he left and saw that she was actually eating and didn’t seem too fragile, so he headed out. 

No one saw Audrey the rest of the weekend, but Nathan noticed her tattoo first thing Monday morning. “You got a tattoo?” he asked incredulously. 

“You have a problem with that?” she challenged. 

Nathan took a step back and reevaluated. “No. Sorry. Was just a surprise.” When she relaxed and nodded in acceptance of the apology, he asked. “What’s it mean?” 

“Nothing gold can stay is a quote from Robert Frost. My youngest son, Caspian, studied literature and Robert Frost was his favorite poet. Whenever anything went bad he used to say that. It means that nothing good lasts forever.” She decided to try and talk about them. At least a little bit. And explaining the quote that she’d had done in elegant cursive on her forearm was small enough. 

“Fitting,” Nathan replied. “And the leaves?” 

“The two big gold ones on top represent me and my husband. The three smaller ones under that, our three kids, and the seven smallest our grandkids. The brown one at the bottom that they’re falling towards is for my father-in-law. We lost him a few years back to old age.” 

“A good way to remember them then,” Nathan said, hoping it was the right thing to say. The tattoo could have been a lot worse. Even just a list of names might have given people the wrong idea, but this one was actually nice. 

When Duke stopped by that night, he didn’t even have to ask the meaning. She’d mentioned three kids and seven grandkids and he could count just fine. He was also familiar enough with the phrase to know what it meant, even if he didn’t know the original context. “Nice ink,” he told her with a grin as he sat himself on the railing in front of her. 

“Thanks,” she said with a slight smile. “And yes I ate today. I don’t need a babysitter.” She had eaten almost a whole sub for lunch, even if it had taken some prompting from Nathan. 

“Wasn’t gonna ask,” Duke held up his hand in amused surrender. 

“Nathan told you then,” she guessed. 

Duke barked a laugh but declined to answer. “So I hear you rented a boat and some fishing gear from old man Davies down at the wharf yesterday. I’m hurt that you didn’t even think to ask me to take you,” he pouted playfully. 

“You been checking up on me, Crocker?” she narrowed her eyes at him, not sure if she was upset or amused. Then again, she was rarely sure of anything these days. 

“On the contrary. I just had some business down there this morning and it was mentioned. No one’s ever known you to fish before. Or knew you could drive a boat. I’m guessing it’s something you picked up in the other world.” The whole point of the comment was to try and get her to talk about it, after all. 

“Yeah. There was actually time for hobbies there,” she huffed. At least it had been a slow few days, though she had found out today that Nathan had a case over the weekend but hadn’t called her. She had been torn between glad that she’d gotten the weekend off and annoyed that he left her out of it. 

“No, I get that. I just didn’t expect fishing to be one of yours,” he chuckled. 

“I didn’t go as often as my husband and kids, but I enjoyed it sometimes,” she admitted. She was really missing having someone else there to deal with the scales. That was one thing that she’d never liked and it drove her crazy until she managed to get home and shower last night to get them off her. “In fact…” she got up and headed inside, grabbing one of the bags of cleaned fish from her freezer and then tossed it to him as she came back out. “Feel free to share my first and probably only haul of the nightmare world.” 

He filed away her obvious hatred of this world to address later if needed. It was completely understandable after all and instead kept up the light tone. “Not planning to go again?” 

“Not likely that I’ll have time to go again. I mean what are the chances that we have so long free of troubles again?”

“Not good, I’ll grant you that,” Duke admitted with a chuckle, remembering making a similar comment to Dwight not so long ago. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t /make/ time. I mean…there /are/ other cops in this town you know. You don’t have to do everything yourself.” 

Audrey felt a wash of pain as she remembered her husband telling her the same thing more than once. Those words in that voice with the same hint of amusement. “Yeah. I guess not,” she said shakily. 

Duke frowned, wondering what he’d said to upset her and when he realized that she didn’t plan to share, he decided a change of tactic might be in order. “Why don’t you come hang on the rouge and I’ll fry them up for us?” 

Audrey considered for a long moment before agreeing. She wondered if he used the same recipe here and the idea of eating his cooking again was just too tempting to pass up. She was constantly torn between trying to rebuild a life here and just wallowing in misery made all the more difficult by how similar it all was and yet so different. She had been there before though and Duke had been the one to help her through it. He was the one who had been her rock, and they had just been friends then too. It was worth a shot at least. 

Duke had just finished seasoning them and put them on to fry when Jennifer came in and Duke greeted her with a kiss. “Audrey here actually went fishing, so we’re eating good tonight,” he told her jokingly. Like they didn’t eat good every night. 

Jennifer laughed and turned to greet Audrey cheerfully as sat down next to her. “I didn’t realize you fished. You learned in the other world I’m guessing?”

“Duke told you about that?” 

“I’m sorry. Was he not supposed to?” she said worriedly. 

“No, it’s fine. It’s not like I told him to keep it secret. I should have guessed that he’d mention it,” Audrey assured her. “And yeah. I started fishing there. Never did get any good at cooking though,” she chuckled, trying her best to just relax and enjoy the evening. 

“Now /that/ part doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Duke teased. The three of them had a nice dinner, and Audrey kept lapsing into sad silences, but neither Duke or Jennifer thought much of it. It was completely understandable, after all with what she was going through and they did what they could to cheer her up, even poking at each other to try and make her laugh. 

Audrey begged off after dinner and thanked them both before retreating back into her apartment and finally letting the tears fall. That had been a mistake. Being around Duke like this was hard enough, but watching him and Jennifer so happy and domestic…She was glad that he was happy. She really was. And she had no intention of trying to mess things up for him. But it didn’t make it any easier to watch. Not when she was already barely holding it together. She would get used to it, she was sure. It was just too raw right now.


	2. Chapter 2

She avoided the balcony tonight and stayed inside, drinking straight from the bottle, and even pulled out her photo album, taking her time to savor every single picture before moving on to the next. It didn’t help that she barely see through her tears and she was glad that the pictures were encased in plastic otherwise they might have been ruined. She had a brief thought to find a way to make copies just in case. She would have to go out of town where no one knew her or Duke, but it was an idea. Just not one that she could hold onto for long in her current state. 

The next morning Duke got a phone call around nine. When he got off the phone, he grabbed the spare keys he had for her apartment just in case he needed them. “Is everything okay?” Jennifer asked worriedly. 

“Not sure,” Duke shrugged. “Audrey didn’t show up to work and isn’t answering her phone. Nathan’s tied up at a crime scene and wants me to check on her.” 

“You want me to come…”

“No, you stay here. Just in case,” Duke told her. If something /had/ happened the fewer people to mess up the scene the better. He grabbed his gun and put it at his back and headed across the dock to her place. He knocked on the door and didn’t get an answer so he knocked again. “Audrey, if you don’t answer I’m coming in,” he called. Fair warning in case she was fine and changing or something. Since nothing /looked/ out of place from here he would give that much courtesy. When he still got nothing, he pulled out the keys and unlocked the door. When he saw her unconscious on the couch he immediately rushed over and checked her pulse, letting out a relieved breath when he found it. 

It only took a quick perusal to get an idea of what happened. The empty bourbon bottle on the floor and the almost empty one hanging from her hand told as much of a story as the tear tracks on her face. She was clearly out cold, but she wasn’t showing any other signs of alcohol poisoning and he knew them well, so he decided to let her be. Her pulse and breathing were fine so there was no point making her deal with a hospital stay. He pulled out his phone and texted Nathan a quick, ‘okay, but passed out. She’s out sick today.’ Once the tetchy detective was reassured, Duke went to grab the asprin and a tall glass of water to put on the table next to her before he gently pulled the almost empty bottle from her hand and put the cap back on it, setting it on the table too. He grabbed the blanket from the end of the couch to drape over her and when he went to pick up the empty bottle from the floor to throw it away, his eyes caught something else and he sucked in a sharp breath. 

He picked up the album, eyes glued to the picture it had fallen open to in disbelief. She was in a long white dress…clearly a wedding dress…and dancing with…his father? The hell? Did she seriously marry his father? Become his stepmother? He could feel the bile rising in his throat at the thought and considered just putting it away, but he needed to know for sure. He /needed/ more information and since she was out cold, there was only one place he could get it. He flipped back to the front of the album and saw a picture of himself with her leaning on him, both of them laughing, sitting at one of the outdoor tables at Haven Joe’s. Okay, so he was friendly with his stepmother at least? 

He flipped through the next few pictures, noticing that they were mostly of him with her and started to wonder. He wasn’t sure though until he found the picture with himself on one knee in front of her holding out a ring and on the other side him holding her while she showed off the ring and his eyes widened. He reached over and pulled her hand out from under the blanket, studying the ring that he hadn’t paid much attention to before, and realized that it had been his grandmother’s. He’d only seen it a couple times before it disappeared, probably along with his mother, when he was a kid, but yeah. It was definitely it. 

Duke could barely breathe as he took it in. God, they looked so happy. He didn’t think he’d ever seen either of them that happy. He absentmindedly flipped the page and a few more until he got to the wedding pictures and unconsciously reached out to trail his fingers over them. Now he got why she had been dancing with his father, at least, but that was a whole other can of worms. His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the next pictures as he turned the page. Jesus, but she was so beautiful. And the way she looked at him…Could that really have been his life? He suddenly dropped the album like he’d been scalded. No. It wasn’t /his/ life. She chose Nathan. He couldn’t forget that. Nathan hadn’t been available in that world. Here she chose Nathan and he was with Jennifer. He got up, leaving the album on the floor where she left it and walked out, locking the door back behind him. 

When he walked back onto the boat, clearly in a daze, Jennifer got more worried. “Duke? What happened? Is she okay?” 

“She’s…fine. Passed out drunk, but…yeah,” Duke said dismissively. 

“Okay, then why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” she asked carefully, leading him towards the couch to sit down and the fact that he just let her worried her even more. 

Even if Duke had /wanted/ to hide this from her, he wouldn’t have been able to. He just couldn’t even process on his own. He had to tell /someone/ and the only other person he was even reasonably close to was Nathan and that didn’t even bear mentioning in this situation. “She…had a photo album…from there…”

“Okay…” Jennifer said leadingly as she held his hand. 

“I saw…wedding pictures…”

“Well we knew she was married…”

“To me,” Duke dropped the bombshell and Jennifer gasped. “She was married…to me. Well…the other me obviously, but…”

Jennifer closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths knowing exactly where this was going to go and screwed up her courage to say, “Okay. I’ll step aside. I mean, we can still be friends right, so…”

“Wait what?” That snapped Duke out of his shock as he turned to look at her. “You think I would…”

“It’s okay Duke,” she cut him off sadly. “I always knew that you were in love with her. I knew that this could happen one day. I didn’t think it would be like this, but…I walked into this with my eyes wide open.”

“Jennifer, no,” Duke shook his head. “That’s not…I’m not…”

“Please don’t make this worse by lying to me and telling me that you don’t love her,” Jennifer begged. 

“I’m not,” Duke sighed. “I do and I can’t deny it. But it doesn’t /change/ anything. She chose Nathan and I’m moving on. I /care/ about you, Jennifer. And I’m not going to just throw you aside for someone that already threw me away. It’s too little too late.” 

Jennifer felt a little bit of hope welling up in her at his words. “I wish I could believe that,” she sighed. 

“Besides…that guy wasn’t me. He might have looked like me and maybe even had the same name, but that doesn’t mean he was the same person. Clearly there was a lot different in that world. I mean, my father was still alive and was apparently a good guy from what I could tell. She even referred to him as Dad once. Before I knew who she was talking about. That Duke could have been a completely different person. I doesn’t mean that she feels anything for /me/ besides the fact that I remind her of her husband,” he tried to rationalize, refusing to consider what she had said before about them being the same. 

“I guess…” Jennifer had to admit that he had a point there. 

“So no more talk of stepping aside?” he half-asked, half-ordered, reaching out to brush her hair back and look in her eyes, and when she agreed he kissed her gently. “Good,” he whispered, wrapping his arm around her. 

Jennifer curled up to his side and asked, “Did you learn anything else?” 

“Not really. Once I got to the wedding pictures I was a little too stunned to keep looking,” he shrugged. “It’s just…surreal.” 

“I can imagine.” 

The conversation was interrupted by Duke’s phone ringing. “What do you mean passed out, but okay?” Nathan asked before Duke could even get a word out. 

“Just what I said. She clearly had way too much to drink and wasn’t waking up for anything, but her pulse and breathing were okay, which means she’ll be fine…other than the massive hangover I’m sure she’s in for.” At least Duke had a decent idea what had set her off now. That dinner last night with him and Jennifer. He rolled his eyes at Nathan’s response. “Of course not. I took the bottle out of her hand and cleaned up a little bit, put a blanket on her, and then just let her sleep it off. Oh and I left the asprin and a glass of water on the table for her too. I’m not heartless, you know…Yes if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll make sure she’s okay after lunch, bye Nathan,” he hung up, shaking his head amusedly. 

Duke made a bigger lunch than normal and after he and Jennifer ate, he packed up the leftovers and asked Jennifer, “Do you want to take this Audrey and make sure she’s okay?” 

“You don’t want to go?” she asked confused. 

“I don’t think being around me too much right now is what she needs,” Duke shrugged. “But if you’re uncomfortable with it…”

“No, it’s fine. I was just surprised is all,” Jennifer assured him. 

“Just…don’t let her know that we know about…you know.”

“Okay,” she hesitantly agreed. She honestly wasn’t sure which way would be better, so she would follow his lead on that subject. She went up and knocked on Audrey’s door and heard shuffling before it was opened and Audrey grunted miserably at her before turning to shuffle back to the couch where she sat and put her head in her hands. “I brought you some lunch and Duke said he left some asprin out for you. Did you take it?” 

“Mhmm. Hasn’t kicked in yet. That was Duke?” she croaked out. She’d only been awake for about ten minutes and had barely managed to open her eyes. 

“Yeah, apparently Nathan was worried when you didn’t show up for work or answer your phone so he sent Duke to check on you,” Jennifer told her. 

“Oh god. Work. Nathan,” she groaned pinching the bridge of her nose. “Where’s my phone,” she started looking around. 

Jennifer reached out and caught her hand. “It’s okay. Duke let him know you were out sick today but that you’d be fine. I don’t think it’ll make him feel better to hear from you right now anyway,” she chuckled. Audrey sounded as bad as she looked. “You should drink some more of the water and eat something,” she held out the Tupperware of leftovers. 

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks Jennifer,” she sighed. 

“I’ll grab you a fork.” She was back a moment later and her eyes lit on the album still on the floor. Duke had said not to let her know they knew about it but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to get her to admit it. “What’s that?” she asked gesturing towards it. 

Audrey’s hand snapped out faster than she would have thought possible in her current state and she hugged it to her chest. “Nothing,” she said quickly. She briefly wondered if Duke had seen it when he was here but decided that he hadn’t. He wouldn’t have left it on the floor if he had and it had been halfway under the table so not immediately noticeable. That was a relief. 

Jennifer could see that pushing the subject wouldn’t do any good from the way that Audrey was guarding it like her life depended on it, so she changed the subject. “I’m sorry about last night. We were trying to cheer you up and show you that there can be good here too, even with all the bad mixed in.”

“No, it’s okay. I know. Last night was good. It was just…”

“You know, I remember when my adoptive dad died. For a long time after that, every time I would actually let myself have fun or be happy about something, I would end up feeling really guilty afterwards. Like I was dishonoring his memory or something, you know?” Jennifer explained, trying to help her come to terms with things. 

“Yeah. I do know,” Audrey save her a sympathetic smile. 

“But the thing is…he would have wanted me to get on with my life and be happy and have fun. I know it might still be too soon for you, but…just remember that,” she told her. She couldn’t resist adding, “And Nathan loves you. He’ll wait for you to be ready to move on.” 

Audrey winced, but nodded. “I know. Thanks.” 

“Well I’ll let you rest now. I know how hangovers are. And if you need anything, you know where to find us.” Audrey just nodded miserably as she focused on the food that it was clear that Duke cooked. Unless he’d taught Jennifer his recipes and that thought came with a stab of pain that had nothing to do with the alcohol as she heard her apartment door close behind Jennifer. The food helped. Or the asprin had kicked in by the time she was done. Either way she felt a little bit better and headed for the shower. That usually helped clear up a lot of it too. After her shower she felt human enough to find her phone and call Nathan. Learning that there was something out there stealing people’s hearts made her just want to go back to bed. Seemed like their break from troubles was over. She got dressed and headed in to help. 

Since she’d been off all day due to her own indulgence, it was only fair that she stay late. She offered to take care of it so Nathan could go home for a while, but he refused and they both worked long into the night until she just snapped. Maybe it was her lack of decent sleep. Maybe it was the residual hangover. Or her newfound bitterness. Or even just the fact that she wasn’t used to stuff like this anymore, but she just couldn’t take it. She slammed the folder down and said, “No, you know what? I’m done.” 

“Done?” Nathan asked carefully, trying to figure out which landmine had been stepped on and how to steer clear from more. 

“Yes. Done. Done with all this-this-this…crap! Done with this job. Done with the troubles. That’s it. I quit!” She got up to storm out. 

“Wait…Audrey…you can’t just quit,” he protested. 

“Yes. I can. You know why?” she snapped. “Because I tried. I did my freaking part. I went into that barn to fix it all. And YOU screwed it up. This shouldn’t even be happening. I was willing to sacrifice /everything/ to end it. I DID sacrifice everything. So many damn times. And I’ve hit my limit! I’ve lost too much to all this bullshit. I’m DONE!”

Nathan winced as the swinging door came back just as hard as she had pushed it on her way out and turned around to see Dwight standing in the doorway of his office with a grave look. Dwight sighed and headed over to the long table in the center of the bullpen where they had everything spread out. “Well we still have work to do,” he said as he buckled down to help, making it clear that Nathan wasn’t leaving. When he kept looking worriedly towards the door Dwight said, “Look, just give her some time. I’ve seen people snap like this before and if you start pushing, it’s just going to make it worse. She’s going through a lot right now. Give her a chance to get herself together. We can handle things until then.”

Audrey went home, slamming her door behind her and started angrily throwing clothes in her suitcase. She had to get out of here. She just couldn’t live like this anymore. After trying and failing three times to zip it up thanks to things hanging haphazardly out of it, she lost it and grabbed the bag, throwing it at the wall with a scream of frustration and she collapsed on the bed as the tears started pouring out of her again. God, she was so sick of crying. She was sick of fighting. She was sick of feeling like this. She just wanted her life back damnit. Was that really so much to ask? The sun was already coming up before she managed to fall asleep. She was woken up by a persistent knocking on her door and a glance at the clock showed that it was three in the afternoon. “What?” she snarled as she opened the door. 

“Audrey, we need your help,” Duke said worriedly. 

“No, Duke. I quit. I can’t…”

“Yeah, I know. I heard,” he said dismissively. When started to turn away, he grabbed her shoulders. “Audrey, it’s Jennifer.”

“Do what?” Audrey asked with wide eyes. 

“This thing…it’s after Jennifer,” Duke told her, not noticing that Audrey was already reaching for her gun. “And I know you quit with the troubles and all and okay, fine, but please Audrey…if you have ever cared about me at all…”

“Let’s go,” she interrupted since he hadn’t noticed that she had gotten ready during his rant, and she brushed past him out the door leaving him to catch up with he quickly did. She noticed his hands tapping impatiently on the wheel as he drove and she reached over to put a comforting hand on his arm. “It’ll be okay, Duke. I promise you we won’t let anything happen to her, okay?” she said soothingly. 

Duke looked over at her and let out a heavy breath. Somehow her saying that helped. Dwight and Nathan had told him to just let her be for a while and he had disagreed. That was the worst way to handle her, but given their issues, he knew that getting himself involved wasn’t a good idea so he was going to go along with it. Until they found out that it was after Jennifer. Then he didn’t give a shit about anything anymore. Just that they save her. No matter what. “Okay,” he all but whispered. “And…I’m sorry. For dragging you back in, I mean. I know how it is to just want out and I don’t blame you, but…”

“It’s Jennifer, Duke. If ever there were a reason to drag me in…this is it,” Audrey said seriously before grabbing the dash as they spun sideways in front of the building that Jennifer was hidden in. When they got inside, Audrey noticed the dirty looks that both Nathan and Dwight shot Duke and wondered what was going on before deciding that it didn’t matter right now. Then she noticed two other guys, one with a video camera. “Who are they?” she asked suspiciously. 

“Long story,” Nathan told her. “I thought you quit?” 

“That was before this thing decided to go after Jennifer,” she said firmly. “What’s the plan?” 

“Audrey, you stay with Jennifer. Keep her safe, while the rest of us try to find this thing,” Duke decided. That way she could stay out of it as much as possible and Jennifer had a protector that wasn’t geriatric. 

“I’m fine with Vince and Dave,” Jennifer tried to argue. “She should be helping to find it.” And she couldn’t be positive just how much Audrey would protect her if she really did love Duke. Or think she did, whichever the case may be. It wasn’t that she thought that Audrey would intentionally let anything happen to her, of course, but subconsciously maybe. Just being a little too slow or moving in the wrong direction or a thousand little things her subconscious instincts could do in the middle of a fight in those split second decisions. 

“No, Audrey can protect you better than they can,” Duke shook his head. 

“Duke…” she said warningly cutting her eyes between him and Audrey. 

“Trust me, Jennifer,” he said earnestly, getting what she was thinking and knowing that Audrey would stop at nothing to protect her. Especially if she loved him. Because he had been in her shoes and he knew her better than anyone realized. It took a minute, but Jennifer finally nodded and everyone else filed out, leaving her alone with Audrey. 

Jennifer was pacing nervously while Audrey sat on the arm of the couch in clear view of all the exits with her gun drawn and held at her side. The others had only been gone for about ten minutes when it came and Audrey dragged Jennifer behind her and told her to call Duke. It was moving too fast for her to get a good bead on it, dancing in and out of the doorways, so she just focused on keeping Jennifer safe and waiting for it to make a mistake. At least until Jennifer finished her phone call and then she could turn her attention to getting them out of here. “Okay, stay behind me,” Audrey whispered, tugging on her sleeve to get her moving with her towards the nearest doorway out of the building. 

“Where are we going?” she asked fearfully. 

“We can’t just let it keep us bottled up in this room. The others are on their way back. We need to get you out of here and hopefully keep that thing in here so we can take care of it,” Audrey told her. She took a few pot shots at the doorway to keep it back so they could get through. Unfortunately it seemed a little smarter than they’d expected and just waited until they were in the open and then they were running while Audrey tried to get it shot. At one point Jennifer dropped the book and it skidded away, and the creature changed directions. “It’s after the book,” she realized. If she had known that would make Jennifer go after it she would have kept her mouth shut. 

Jennifer turned around and raced for the book causing Audrey to curse and run after her. Audrey tackled the monster before it got there since she was out of bullets now and didn’t know what else to do. “Jennifer, run!” she yelled as the monster threw her off and tried to get back in the chase. Audrey grabbed it’s leg only to find herself kicked and skidding across the floor, hitting the wall headfirst. She knew that she had a concussion when she felt the nausea and dizziness hit and she could almost smell the blood pouring from her head, so she wondered if she was imagining it when the monster slowed down and almost seemed disoriented. 

Duke skidded around the corner to find Jennifer clutching the book and Audrey sprawled out across the room. He pushed Jennifer behind him and called, “Audrey!” 

“Go! Get her out of here!” Audrey yelled as she tried to stagger to her feet. “I’ll keep it busy.” 

Duke hesitated and the monster seemed to at least partially recover and came at them again. He drew his gun to shoot at it, but it didn’t do any good and since the thing was between them and Audrey, he couldn’t do anything for her either, so he grabbed Jennifer and started taking her out, praying to every deity he could think of that Audrey would be okay until help got there, but the monster was too fast and he got knocked off his feet and he was trying to get back up when it went for Jennifer and then just…disintegrated. “What…where’d it go?” he looked around worriedly. 

“I don’t know, but…the book…” Jennifer said in awe just as Dwight and Nathan came running up. 

“Dwight, take Jennifer. Get her out of here,” Duke told him before turning to Nathan. “We have to find Audrey.” He grabbed Nathan’s sleeve and started dragging him back the way they’d come. 

“Where is she? What happened?” Nathan asked following along worriedly. 

“Back here. She’s hurt…”

“And you just left her?!” 

“I didn’t have a choice,” Duke snapped. When they found her he was quicker to her side as Nathan checked the area to make sure they weren’t going to get ambushed while they were helping her. “She’s barely breathing and her pulse is weak,” Duke said worriedly as he picked her up.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Nathan nodded, pulling out his phone. By the time they got out the ambulance was pulling up and Jennifer rushed over. 

“Is she gonna be okay?” Jennifer asked. She could admit when she was wrong and Audrey had definitely gone above and beyond to protect her. 

“I don’t know,” Duke said shakily, running his hands through his hair, not even noticing the blood he was smearing there. Or that was all over his clothes. “It’s bad.” 

Jennifer hugged him tightly with a quiet, “I’m sorry,” as the doors of the ambulance closed and it sped off with Audrey and Nathan inside. 

Duke hugged her back before shaking himself. “Right. We still need to figure this out. It looked like the thing just disintegrated, but how? And is it coming back?” 

“I don’t think it’s coming back and I think the book caused it. Look,” she showed it to him. 

“I don’t see anything and how could a book cause it?” Duke asked confused. 

“Look. The symbol. It’s glowing,” Jennifer pointed at it, but he still couldn’t see it. And neither could anyone else she realized, but they were convinced that the Rougarou wasn’t coming back at least. When she read them the riddle that was in the book, she realized that this was /her/ quest. Her purpose. If only she knew what it meant. “Clearly we’re not going to figure this out right now. We should get to the hospital and check on Audrey.” 

When they got there, the doctors were stumped. When she’d arrived, she’d had a subdural hematoma and they were sure that she wasn’t going to survive, but then it just started healing on its own. Slowly, but it was healing. When they were let in to see her, Jennifer asked if they could have a few minutes. “Why would you do that?” she asked Audrey. 

“Do what?” Audrey asked confused. 

“You almost died. To save /me/,” Jennifer said. “You quit. Walked away. But came back for /me/. Why? You barely know me.” 

“Because Duke cares about you,” she said seriously. “You make him happy.” She probably wouldn’t have been quite so open without the drugs she was being given, but she managed to keep anything more than that from slipping out. 

“Thank you,” Jennifer said with tears in her eyes as she squeezed Audrey’s hand. She was positive now that Audrey truly loved Duke, but she also knew that Duke had made his decision. Like he’d said, she was too late. But she still wanted him to be happy and Jennifer could live with that. She could see that Audrey was starting to drift off so she just said, “Thank you,” again and left, telling the guys that she was sleeping. 

“We should go home…now that we know she’s gonna be okay,” Duke said. 

“Yeah, you need to change and shower too,” Jennifer screwed up her nose pointing at all the blood on him from Audrey’s head wound. 

“Yeah. That too,” Duke chuckled before turning to Nathan. “Let me know how she’s doing, yeah?” Nathan just nodded. 

Audrey was released from the hospital the next day, completely healed, not that anyone knew how and Nathan took her home, but she still wasn’t up for company. She did go back to work though. She realized that she couldn’t leave. As long as Duke was in this shitfest, then she was too. Everyone else and everything else she could walk away from, but not him. And as an extension, not Jennifer. Things were tense with her and Nathan though. What she’d said to him had hit hard, but she couldn’t bring herself to take it back. She was right. It also didn’t help that she made their breakup official.

Things were slow the next few days though and seemed to have stalled. Apparently, William was taking a break for some reason, but finding him remained a top priority. It took a little while for her to realize that Duke was avoiding her, but once she did, she was more than a little irritated by it. He had been the one to drag her back into this mess and now he was avoiding her like she’d done something wrong. She stomped down to the boat to find him on the deck and asked, “Why are you avoiding me?” 

“Why would I be avoiding you?” Duke asked uncomfortably. 

“Why do you think I’m asking?” she huffed. 

“Okay, then why do you think I’m avoiding you?” he was trying to distract from having to answer the question.

“This morning. You saw me walking down the street and you turned around and walked the other way, and don’t even say it wasn’t on purpose. I’m not an idiot,” she snapped. His avoidance was pissing her off. “And that’s not the only time.”

“Look, I’m just trying to make things easier for you,” Duke sighed. 

“Why would that make things easier?” she asked incredulously. “You’re my friend, Duke. Not that you’ve been acting like it lately.” 

Duke bristled at that. Not acting like it. Everything he had done for her. “Maybe because I know your little secret?” he snapped. 

“What secret?” 

“Who you were married to in that other world?” 

She sucked in a sharp breath, wondering how he found out. “So…what? You figured out how I feel about you so now you don’t want me around at all?” she asked heatedly. 

“No,” Duke told her, trying to keep a hold on his temper. “No, you don’t get to do this. Not now. You chose Nathan, Audrey. I’m finally moving on. You don’t get to back on that now.” 

Audrey scoffed, not realizing that Jennifer was standing just inside the door of the boat, letting them fight this one out without interference. She also didn’t notice Nathan walking up the dock towards them. She was just too pissed. “/I/ chose Nathan? /Seriously/!? I didn’t /choose/ Nathan. The two of you chose him /for/ me!” 

“What are you…”

“/I/ chose /YOU/ Duke. Back in that motel? In Colorado? What the hell did you think that was? That was me choosing /you/…and then /you/ pushed me away. And then /you/ pushed me at Nathan. And now you’re pissed because there was actually a version of you that loved me back?!”

“You walked away in Colorado,” Duke snapped. “/You/ did.”

“Because you shut down. You closed yourself off.”

“And you just left it at that and made your own assumptions about what that meant?!”

“What was I supposed to do, Duke? Huh? I only had a few weeks left in this world. I wasn’t going to risk screwing up our friendship by pushing something that you didn’t want. You were the only thing keeping me from freaking out and falling apart. You were the only thing keeping me strong. How could I risk that? I /told/ you that. I gave you every opportunity to tell me I was wrong, but you didn’t. You didn’t say a word.” 

“And you just walked away and never brought it up again,” he pointed out. 

“I didn’t walk away. I stepped outside to get some air. To cool down so that I didn’t end up screwing it all up anyway. All you had to do was open the door. That was all you /ever/ had to do. And now you seriously think I’m trying to stop you from moving on? There was a reason I didn’t tell you! I just want you to be happy. That’s it.”

“You don’t seem very happy with that,” Duke said, temper burned away by confusion. 

“You think that’s why I’m so upset? No. That’s the only part of this whole mess that /isn’t/ tearing me apart. No matter how much it hurts, at least you still /exist/. You can still be /happy/. Losing my kids…my grandkids…the fact that they were completely wiped from existence…/THAT/ is what is tearing me apart. So pardon me for actually wanting a /friend/ to lean on!” she snapped angrily and spun to leave, ignoring the tears that were tracking down her cheeks, but when she saw who was standing there, she froze. “Nathan…” she breathed out anger flowing right out of her at the hurt look on his face. Before she could say anything else, he spun on his heel and walked away. 

“Audrey, I’m…” Duke started but stopped at the glare she fixed him with. 

“Just forget it, Duke. At least I know where I stand with you now,” she said shakily before leaving as fast as she could without sacrificing what dignity she had left.


	3. Chapter 3

Duke sighed heavily, feeling more than a little guilty now, not realizing that it was just about to get worse when he walked inside to find Jennifer packing up her stuff. “Jennifer?” he asked heart-brokenly. 

She spun to look at him guiltily. She hadn’t heard him come in. She’d been planning to talk to him first of course. She just wanted to get a head start. She reached out for his hand and pulled him to sit down next to her on her bed. “I’m sorry, Duke.”

“You’re leaving,” he said more than asked. 

“Maybe not for good. I don’t know yet. But…look…the other day, you said that…that you gave up on her because she chose Nathan, but…now that you know she didn’t really…it /does/ change things. Whether you want it to or not. You need to figure out how much…and you need space for that.”

Duke took a deep breath and closed his eyes, hating himself because she was right. “I never wanted to hurt you, Jennifer. I thought…”

“I know,” she said sadly, taking his hand. “You’re a good man, Duke. And you’ve always done right by me. None of this is your fault. You can’t help who you love and it’s not like you’ve ever made me any promises here. I want you to be happy too, which means I have to give you the space to figure out what it is that will /make/ you happy.” 

“That doesn’t mean you have to leave,” he tried. 

“Yeah. It does,” she said resignedly. “Because as long as I’m here, you’re being pulled in two different directions. And it’s not just for you. Being here with you, spending every day wondering when or if I’m going to lose you for good…I can’t do that, Duke. Figure things out with Audrey. /Talk/ to her. Figure out where you both stand and what you both want, and if that doesn’t work out, then maybe we can give us another try.” 

Duke nodded slowly, squeezing her hand in his, and took a moment to take that all in before saying, “Okay. But…where will you go?” 

“Vince and Dave have an extra room. They offered to let me stay there before…back when you were going to leave. I’m sure the offer is still open. Don’t worry. I’m not leaving town. I still have a door to find,” she chuckled. 

“Yeah. That’s true,” Duke huffed a relieved laugh. 

“And I still have friends here,” she said pointedly, making it clear that she meant him. 

“Yeah. You do,” he agreed. “I’m sorry.” 

She turned and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong. No one did. It just happened.” 

“You know I’m here if you need anything…”

“I know,” she nodded. “I’ll come back for the rest of my stuff?” 

“I’ll keep it safe for you,” he promised. She nodded and picked up her bag and headed out.

Duke spent the rest of the day sitting there in that same spot trying to turn things over in his head and figure out how the hell things got so messed up. And if it was something that they even /could/ get past. If he even wanted to. He just didn’t know what to think about any of it. And was it even /him/ that Audrey loved or was it the other him that she was trying to hold on to. Yesterday he would have been so sure of that answer, but now…if she really had loved him before…did that mean the other him was the replacement? And even if he had started that way, was it still the same after all those years? Or did she really see them as the same person? Was that even possible? By the time he got up and went to his own room to go to bed, the only real conclusion he had come up with was that he needed to talk to her. At the very least he had to make up for being a crappy friend. Make sure that she knew that he didn’t /mean/ to abandon her with that kind of pain. He had been trying to make one part of it feel better without even considering the rest of what she was dealing with. 

Audrey had only been up for about five minutes when there was a knock on her door and she opened it to find Duke standing there with two cups of coffee and a hopeful look on his face and she felt the tears fill her eyes again. Both happy and sad tears this time as she was bombarded by memories of a thousand mornings like this with both versions of him. She smiled wide and reached out for one of the cups as she opened the door the rest of the way to let him in. The words weren’t needed. Him bringing the coffee was the apology and her taking it was hers. 

As they sat down on the couch, she reached for the photo album on the table and went to put it away but his hand on hers stopped her. “Don’t?” he asked hopefully. 

“That’s how you knew isn’t it?” she asked, pulling her hand back. Not hiding it, but not showing him either. “That morning when you came to check on me. It was on the floor. You saw?” 

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“Because you didn’t want me to know,” he shrugged. 

“Uh-huh. Now how about the real reason,” she said amusedly. 

He sighed. “Because…I didn’t want to deal with it. With all the questions. With figuring out what it meant. With…with what it might do to me and Jennifer.” 

“Duke, I’m okay with you and Jennifer. You have a right to be happy.”

“Jennifer and I split up. Maybe temporarily, maybe permanently, but…yeah.” 

“Oh god…she was there yesterday wasn’t she? She heard everything?” Duke nodded. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say anything? I would have shut up.” 

“I didn’t even think about it, but…it wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have hidden any of it from her even if she didn’t hear it,” he told her. “Since it’s all in the open now…Will you…tell me? Show me?” he motioned to the album. 

“I…um…” she hesitated, biting her lip. “O-okay,” she finally agreed reaching out and picking up the album. “Where do you want to start?” 

“The beginning,” he told her, reaching out slowly to open it, giving her a chance to stop him. “When was that?” he pointed at the picture of them laughing at the café. 

“That was about a week or two after I got there,” she told him, tracing her fingers over the picture lovingly. 

“You got together that fast? Or were he and the other you already together?” Duke asked curiously. 

“There was no other me there. I never existed in that world. And no, we weren’t together there. It was a couple months before we got together…It might easier for me to tell you how we met first,” she chuckled. 

“Yeah okay. That’s a little more beginning huh?” 

“So I woke up on the bare floor of a storage room above a bait shop.” At his confused look she explained. “The Gull was a bait shop in that world.” 

“Ah. Okay,” he nodded. 

“I had nothing at all except what I was wearing which just happened to be pajama pants and a tank top. I didn’t even have any shoes or socks. The bait shop was closed down so I left and started walking.”

“That’s pretty far from town to walk. And without shoes?” 

“Yeah. It was a long walk, but I didn’t have to make much of it because it wasn’t long after I got to the main road when a Haven PD Suv drove by. Then turned around and stopped. I started laughing because I was sure that Detective Duke Crocker was a joke.”

“Detective? Me? I was a cop?” Duke asked incredulously. “I thought you said back at the start that I was the same guy.”

“You were. Like I said, the only differences were on the surface.”

“Um…Audrey…criminal to cop is a little more than surface. Unless I was a dirty cop, but that’s even worse than being a criminal.” 

“No, you definitely weren’t a dirty cop,” she assured him. “And there’s not as much difference as you might think. It’s all down to circumstances. You didn’t have to learn to survive on your own as a kid, so you never turned to crime. What you do and who you are aren’t the same thing.”

“Okay, then in what ways was he like me?” 

“You were just as rebellious for one. Had the same long hair despite how much your dad, the police chief, hated it, which was part of the reason you kept it. You never did the expected. You were just as observant and good at piecing things together as you are here. You just put those skills to a different purpose. You were also just as good at thinking outside the box. You always wanted to help people. But most of all, your whole personality and attitude were the same.”

“You keep saying /you/. You really see us as the same person?” Duke asked confused. 

“Yeah. I do. Because from the moment we met, it was exactly the same as it is with you. The same conversations, jokes, teasing, arguing, helping each other, all of it. I’m not really sure I can put it into words beyond just saying you /felt/ the same.” 

“Yeah, I think I get what you mean. I’m still skeptical about the whole cop thing, but I’ll take your word for it for now,” Duke chuckled. “Anyway, you laughed at me for being a cop…and then?” 

“Well I was rambling on like a crazy person talking about the troubles and how nothing was how it was supposed to be and you took me to the hospital for a psych eval,” she said amusedly and he laughed. “But not before buying me a pair of shoes and a decent shirt.” 

“Yeah that’s the basis for a lasting friendship,” he rolled his eyes. 

“It was, because you were really sweet. When you dropped me off you told me that whatever I was going through I didn’t have to do it alone and then gave me your business card and wrote your cell number on the back and told me to call you if I needed anything,” she smiled wistfully at the memory, pain easing just a little bit by talking to him about it. 

“Sounds like a pick-up line to me,” he joked. 

“Yeah because who wouldn’t want to date the delusional ones,” she couldn’t help but laugh. 

“So I take it you called, then…”

“Yeah. Once I realized what was going on and how nice it was there, I knew I wanted to find a way to keep it like that, but I needed help. I didn’t have anything or anyone and I had no idea where to even start. Nathan had been my doctor at the hospital which was also where I saw his family, so I knew I couldn’t count on him, even if he wasn’t so weird. There was only one other person that I could always count on, no matter what, so I called you.” 

“And you actually managed to convince me of your crazy story?” he asked skeptically. 

“Yeah. Eventually. I didn’t get off to a very good start though,” she chuckled. “I was trying to prove that I knew you and the first few things I thought of were things that were different there. I almost had you at you living on a boat. You didn’t there, but you’d always wanted to, so it was something, but then I remembered the second chancers and that was what convinced you.”

“That was all it took?” Duke asked curiously. 

“Yeah. How come you never told me that you had a pact with them to keep it secret?” 

“Well in the wake of Jeff dying and all, it didn’t seem that important,” Duke shrugged. 

“Well that was why. None of you had ever told anyone about it, so the fact that I knew proved that you had told me. That and the fact that you said there was some kind of instinct or gut feeling telling you to trust me, so I just had to give you a good enough reason.”

“Makes sense. And another way we were alike. I always rely a lot on my instincts,” Duke nodded. 

“What did your instincts tell you about me when we first met?” she asked curiously. 

“Well given that I saved your life, washed your clothes, made you breakfast and all, that should be obvious,” he rolled his eyes. “Believe me I don’t make a habit of bringing feds onto my boat. Normally I just would’ve fished you out, did CPR and then called an ambulance to get you out of my hair.” 

“Yeah, I get that. So from there you took me back to your place…to sleep on the couch,” she added before he could make the comment she could see shining in his eyes. “And set me to looking through old newspapers and a book on the history of the town while you went back to work. That night when you got home, we worked together to figure out how to find the troubled person and figured out a story for me.”

“Which was?” 

“I was a small town cop from Nebraska who witnessed something big and was being chased by the mob so I had to dump everything, including my identity, and take off. You convinced your dad to use his contacts to get me a witness protection ID and he hired me on as a detective and I became your partner.” 

“So my dad was one of those who was different apparently,” he snorted derisively. 

“Apparently,” she chuckled. “He was a really good man and you and he were close, even though you had a tendency to butt heads. He took me under his wing and even took money from the petty cash to get me clothes and food and stuff until I started work. And that was before he even met me. You just told him the story we concocted and he wanted help in any way he could.”

Duke turned his attention back to the picture. “So we’d only known each other for a week or two and we were already that close? I mean, you I get, but I don’t usually warm up to people that fast. If at all.”

“Yeah, it was so hard not to think of you as this you and I would start to lean on him and then stop or start to reach out before pulling back and it was driving you nuts so you told me to quit it and just act natural and you’d deal. That it was more uncomfortable for you with me holding back.” She shifted to lean against him in the way she always had as though to emphasize the point and his arm slung over the back of the couch to give her room. 

“Okay, I can see that,” he decided. 

“It surprised you how comfortable you were with it right off the bat once I relaxed too and it was just like nothing had really changed with us.”

“So you keep that picture because it’s kind of our start?” he asked. He’d seen enough of the rest of the pictures to know that they were all big things rather than just a silly lazy day. 

“Partially, but it’s also a reminder of my birthday that year,” she smiled sadly at the memory. “Dad had just picked a birthday by throwing a dart at a calendar so it was only six weeks after I got there. You threw me a surprise party…again,” she laughed. “The first present I opened was a photo album from Dad. He said that since I had lost all my old pictures and mementos, he wanted to start new ones. He’d been taking pictures on the sly pretty much since I got there, including this one, to put in it.” 

“Okay, that is really nice. I wish I’d thought of it,” Duke told her. 

“You gave me an amazing present too. Don’t worry,” she grinned. At his questioning look she told him, “I’d been staying at the inn since the first couple night, paid for by the department, and I was dying to get out of there. You convinced your landlady to give me a deal on the apartment across the hall from yours that meant I could move in immediately instead of spending another month saving enough.”

“That sounds like something I’d do. Barter and make deals.”

“Yeah. And it might amuse you to know that after I told that you about the necklace gift you gave me, he was a little jealous that you gave better gifts.” 

Duke laughed. “You told him about that?” He hadn’t thought the gift was that great. 

“I told you about /everything/. That was another way you were alike. You wanted to know it all.” 

“You told him…me…/everything/? Even…even about Wade?” Duke asked, pain flashing in his eyes. 

“I tried to avoid that one. I really did. I mean…I was just trying to maybe heal the rift between you two. Or get you to reach out somehow. Then you asked me how I even knew about him and I gave you the good stuff. Before he activated his curse, but you kept pushing and wouldn’t let it go until you got the whole story.” 

“And how did I take it?” 

“Not well, but better than I expected. We talked it out for a bit and then you retreated to meditate for a while. And you did eventually reach out to your brother, so I guess my original intention worked.”

Duke nodded and turned back to the album and flipped the page. “This one we were definitely together by then, yeah?” He could tell by the way they were looking at each other and she was sitting in his lap. 

“Yeah that was the first picture we took after we got together. It was a few days later.” 

“How did that happen? How did we get together?” 

“Well it started with a fight actually,” she chuckled. “Once he realized that he was in love with me he got all squirrely about wondering if I cared more about him or you and after we fought, he realized that I saw the two of you as the same person so there was no need for any competition. He showed up at my door the next morning with two coffees,” she grinned at him and he chuckled. “A little while later, he asked me about Colorado. See, one of the first questions he asked was if you and I were together and all I said was that we had gotten close but then you pushed me away and he never asked me for details until then. He said he wanted to get his own feelings for me figured out before muddying the waters with that.”

“You switched from you to he,” Duke pointed out questioningly. 

“Did I?” she asked thinking back over what she’d said. “Yeah, I guess I did. Probably because I know you don’t feel that way about me, so…”

“I do,” Duke admitted in a whisper and she spun to look at him appraisingly. “But after everything, I don’t know if…I mean…”

“No, I get it,” she nodded. “I don’t know either.” She wasn’t sure if she could love this younger version of him the same way she’d loved the one she had so much history with. 

Talking about all this and helping him understand and giving her the chance to share it was the first step to figuring that out. “So you talked about Colorado?” 

“Yeah. And you had a theory on why you did what you did there, if you want to hear it?” she asked hesitantly. 

“What was the theory?” Duke asked, wondering how right it had been. For him this would be the major test on whether they had really been the same. If this other version of him knew how he thought to that level, then it meant something. Then again, he had been reacting to only one point of view of the story, so if it was wrong, it wouldn’t necessarily mean the opposite. 

“Well it was kind of in multiple parts. You were trying to be a decent friend to Nathan by not taking the woman he loved, and his only chance at something real since I was the only person he could feel. But that it was only part of the reason and mostly just an excuse because you were scared. Both of how much you felt for me and how vulnerable it made you and that I was just getting caught up in the moment and didn’t feel the same way about you.” When Duke didn’t say anything at first and she could feel him tense slightly, she asked softly. “Were you right?” 

“Yeah. I was,” he admitted with some effort, finally starting to believe that it was real. “So…then what?” 

“Then you kissed me…and didn’t stop this time,” she said almost in a whisper and they sat in silence for a few minutes taking that in, Audrey lost in memories and Duke lost in the fantasy. Audrey was the one who snapped out of it first and continued the story. “When we told Dad Monday morning, he called you into his office and gave you your grandmother’s engagement ring,” she laughed remembering their reactions to that as she unconsciously lifted her hand to look at the ring and twirl it around her finger. “Said he knew that you wouldn’t need it right away but he’d rather give it to you too soon than not know you needed it until too late. You were so completely discombobulated at the very idea that when you got back to our office you decided to share the freakout by telling me.” 

“And did you freak out too?” Duke asked curiously. He was barely internalizing his own freak out just hearing about it so he could only imagine how his other self must have felt. Vaguely knowing that they’d been married in that world was a lot different than getting the details and hearing how it happened. Especially since Audrey kept referring to them as the same person. 

“Big time,” she admitted. “I don’t think either of us looked at each other again for hours. You told me at one point that your dad told you that he knew the first time he saw us together that I would be wearing that ring one day and the rest of it was just waiting for you to figure that out too.” 

That made Duke feel a little better that he hadn’t been the only one to freak out, but he needed a change of subject for a few minutes. “So when exactly did I get you out fishing?” 

“A couple weeks after I got there,” she told him. “You had asked me about your boat here and we got talking about how much you loved the water. You rented a boat every Saturday to go fishing or diving or just to be on the water. When I told you that I’d never got to spend much time on the water other than rushing from one place to another in the middle of an emergency, you offered to take me out and give me a chance to enjoy it and see why you liked it so much. I didn’t exactly have the nerve to learn how to dive at that point, so you taught me how to fish instead.” 

“And you liked it?” Duke asked, still finding it hard to believe that the workaholic detective had actually enjoyed such a relaxing pastime. 

“Yeah. I really did. I usually went out with you about once a month. But when it came to cleaning the fish we always had a deal. You would take care of the scales and I would do the rest.”

“I know that time is a little harder to come by now, but I hope you know you’re welcome to come fishing with me anytime,” Duke offered. 

“I know. I probably will one day,” she sighed. It would be so hard with all the memories that it would bring up, but she did want to get past it. At least try. 

She had never gotten actually /happy/ during the conversation, but he saw her getting sadder than before, so he reached out and turned the page of the album to their engagement pictures. “How did I propose?” 

“It was at the monthly Crocker family cookout,” she told him. “I was ordered…not asked, /ordered/, to start coming to those the moment we got together.”

“I’m surprised that I didn’t do it privately.”

“You said you had thought about it, but you knew how much I loved my photo albums so you wanted someone there to take pictures,” she told him. 

Duke nodded. That made a lot of sense. “Well I’m glad I did so I get to see the pictures now…we look so happy,” he almost whispered the last part, unable to keep from reaching out to touch the picture himself. 

“We were,” she breathed out, blinking the tears from her eyes and taking a moment to tell him, “Right after that, Dad told us that he was signing the house over to us. Said that it was too big for one person and the only reason he’d kept it so long was for you to raise a family there.” 

“Did he stay there too or…”

“No, he moved into your apartment instead.”

Duke wasn’t sure what to say to that so he turned the page again to the first of the wedding pictures. “That’s on Cedar Bluff isn’t it?” he asked, recognizing the landscape. 

“Yeah. I wanted to get married up high and you wanted to be by the water, so it was a good compromise,” she told him, leaning her head against his shoulder. It was so hard not to just curl up in his arms in a more romantic way, but unlike last time she was trying to get comfortable with a different Duke, that was too far for a friend to go. And she wasn’t entirely sure that it wouldn’t feel like some kind of betrayal to her husband. “We didn’t have a lot of people there. Neither of us have ever been particularly social. Most of the guests were from work.”

“Wade was my best man?” Duke asked, pointing out the wedding party picture and she nodded. “Who’s that standing with you?” 

“That’s Laverne. The dispatcher from the station,” Audrey told him. 

“/That’s/ Laverne? I’d only ever heard her voice before. I had her pictured as some ancient old crone,” he said in shock. 

Audrey couldn’t help a full belly laugh at that one because yeah. When she’d first gotten here and just heard her voice on the radio before she’d met her she’d had the same image. “Me too. But I didn’t really have any close female friends. She was the closest.” 

When Duke turned the page, he couldn’t help but smile. Now that he wasn’t freaking out at the idea, he could better appreciate the pure joy he could see in both of them during the picture of the kiss and then what he assumed was their first dance. He couldn’t deny that he wanted that kind of happiness desperately. He just didn’t know if it was possible for him in this world. “What song did we dance to?”

“I don’t want to miss a thing, by Aerosmith. It felt fitting,” her lips quirked towards a smile. 

Duke just nodded and turned the page again. “That was the first picture I saw,” he pointed at the one with her dancing with his dad. “The album had fallen open on this page and that’s why I picked it up. I thought at first that you had married my dad.”

Audrey almost busted a gut laughing at that one. It was just so ludicrous, but then she could see how it looked that way from just that one picture. Duke smiled brightly, glad to hear her laugh again, /really/ laugh, for the first time since this mess started. Once she got control of herself again she told him, “No, he asked if I would dance the traditional father-daughter dance with him since I didn’t have a dad. I let him surprise me with the song and I was laughing there because it was just so /him/. Sweet Child Of Mine by Guns ‘N’ Roses.” 

Duke snorted amusedly and went through a few more pages of different wedding guests with accompanying stories and turned the page again to the first one that he hadn’t seen yet and sucked in a sharp breath as he saw himself kneeling in front of Audrey, kissing her swollen stomach. Audrey caught his reaction and reached out to close the album as she said, “We don’t have to…”

Duke stopped her, putting a hand on hers and squeezing almost desperately. “No…please,” he all but begged, voice rough with emotion. This was what he most wanted to see. The happy life that he knew that he could never have. The children that he could never risk passing his curse on to. He needed to know that somehow, somewhere, some version of him had it all.


	4. Chapter 4

Audrey looked up at him and it took a moment for her to read what she was seeing there and when she did, she leaned her head on his shoulder. “That was our first. About two years after we were married. We were both over the moon and also scared to death,” she whispered, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand that was still gripping hers. 

Duke looked at it for a long moment, taking all of it in before turning the page and swallowing around the lump in his throat as he saw a picture of a wrapped blue bundle with a caption underneath it of his name and birthdate. “Simon Duke Crocker,” he breathed out, tracing his fingers over the picture. “He’s…perfect.” 

“Yeah. He is,” Audrey smiled with tears in her eyes. “We called him Si. I thought Dad was going to explode from happiness when we told him the name.” 

Duke turned to the other picture on that page, which was of him beaming, holding the newborn baby and he wished, so desperately, that this could be his life. That he could have all of this. It was a long while before he turned the page again. “That was Si’s first birthday,” he barely registered Audrey saying as he looked at both of them on either side of him apparently trying to coach him on blowing out his candle. The other side held a picture of the toddler covered in cake. 

“No other pictures in between?” Duke asked disappointedly. 

“We had other pictures. Dozens of them. But they were all in the main albums. All I came back here with was what I had on me at the time, and this is the album I always carried around in my purse that only has my favorite pictures,” she said sadly. “I wish I had them all.” She wished for a lot of things really, but there was no point in wishing anymore. 

“Me too,” he whispered sadly before reluctantly turning the page, smiling at the sight of Si riding on his namesake’s shoulders and the other of ‘the Crocker men’ that showed himself holding his son and his dad and Wade on either side of him, arms slung over his shoulders and this one, more than anything, choked him up. Part of him needed to take a break. To stop the onslaught just for a little while, but another part of him /couldn’t/ stop. Had to see more. See it all. That and he was afraid that Audrey might never let him near the album again. She’d been so protective of it and hadn’t wanted to share to begin with.

“Dad was so proud of all of you,” she told him. “He told you that sometimes, but it was like as soon as he became a grandfather, he needed you to know even more.”

“I was…a good dad?” he asked hopefully. 

“The best,” she smiled sadly, missing her babies so much, and a little overwhelmed by Duke’s reactions. 

“We should…probably switch to something a little stronger than coffee, yeah?” he asked, getting up abruptly. 

Audrey recognized the retreat for what it was. “We can take a break?” she suggested as he poured them both drinks to replace their long empty coffee. 

“Maybe just for a little while. As long as we can go back to it after.” 

“Okay,” she agreed. She needed a bit of a break too. Way too many memories slamming into her. 

Once Duke got back with the drinks, she set the album aside for now and returned to leaning against his side in their normal position. They sipped in silence for a long while, both of them trying to get themselves together and using each other as anchors against the onslaught. Eventually, Duke was the one to break the silence. “I guess it’s a good thing Dad’s gone. He definitely wouldn’t be proud of me now.” 

“Of course he would,” Audrey assured him. “He wouldn’t necessarily /approve/ of the way you live your life, but he would still be more than proud of the man you are.” 

“Even after Wade?” Duke scoffed. 

“Yes, Duke. Even after Wade,” she said softly. “Because he would see that you just did what you had to do. He would mourn Wade, sure, but he would be proud of how strong you are to be able to handle it. He would see that it wasn’t your fault, just like I do.” She hesitated a moment before she told him what she had only ever told the other version of him. “If anything it was my fault.”

“How could it have possibly been your fault?” Duke asked incredulously. 

“Because I should have arrested him right there when he stabbed the guy and activated his curse.”

“You didn’t because I asked you not to,” Duke reminded her. “He was still my brother.” 

“And I didn’t have to charge him,” Audrey told him. “I could have just kept him locked up and let you talk to him safely. I could have /helped/ you get through to him. I should never have put that burden all on your shoulders like that.” 

“I wouldn’t have wanted your help, Audrey. You know me. I prefer to do things alone,” Duke reminded her. 

“I know. But just because you don’t want help doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have helped anyway,” she sighed. 

“It wasn’t your fault, Audrey. I don’t blame you,” Duke assured her. “Please don’t blame yourself.”

“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll try to stop blaming myself if you try to stop blaming yourself,” she said firmly. 

Duke huffed but nodded. “I’ll try.” He changed the subject, not wanting to get any deeper into that. “I know that you told me all about this world, but did you ever tell my dad…or anyone else?” 

“Tell him what? That in the other world he was a supernatural serial killer hell-bent on killing me until I killed him first and practically orphaned his eight-year-old son?” she snorted derisively. “No. Definitely not. It was just our secret. We never even told the kids.” 

“So you don’t /know/ that he would have been proud of me then,” he pointed out. 

“Yeah, I do,” she nodded. “I knew him very well and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that he would have loved this version of you just as much as he did that one.”

Duke realized that she knew his father better than he possibly could. At least who he would be if not for the troubles screwing him all up. He still didn’t entirely believe her, but he still had to say, “Thank you.” He reached for the album again and traced his hand over the picture of his family. “A picture like this could never happen in this world. Dad’s dead. Wade is dead. And I can never have a son and pass this curse on. I’m the last Crocker,” he said hauntedly. 

She leaned her head comfortingly on his shoulder. “Maybe you don’t always have to be. If we can find a way to get rid of the troubles for good…”

“It’s best if we don’t live in fairytales, yeah?” Duke said tightly. 

“As long as you don’t ask me to give up,” Audrey agreed, knowing that Duke just couldn’t let himself hope for something that he could probably never have. 

“I wouldn’t,” he agreed before turning the page, getting back to the album and finding the next page as Si’s second birthday party and quickly noticed Audrey’s distended stomach. “You were pregnant again.” 

“Yeah. Eight months. I tried to get set up for the party myself, but when you got home and I was having a nervous breakdown over it, you made me sit down and told Si to go cuddle with me to cheer me up and you finished it all yourself before joining the cuddles,” she smiled wistfully. 

“So you never lose that stubborn streak then, huh?” Duke chuckled. 

“No more than you do,” she teased. 

“Touche,” he conceded the point as he turned his attention back to the pictures, flipping through the party asking about the handful of other kids there and then got to another family picture. This time with Audrey and Marcy in it as well as a baby in Wade’s arms. “I had a nephew…or niece?” 

“Yeah. In that world Wade and Marcy never split up and after we had Si, Marcy bullied him into following suit,” she chuckled. “That’s Dewey…” Duke snorted amusedly. “Yeah, I know.”

“Did they have more kids?” 

“No, just Dewey,” she shook her head. 

Duke took in the picture for a little longer, Simon in the middle with Duke and Wade to either side of him, each holding their sons, and Audrey and Marcy on the ends wrapped in their respective husband’s free arms. Finally, he turned the page again and sucked in another sharp breath as he saw a pink bundle this time. “Lucy Sarah Crocker,” he read the caption. “Lucy and Sarah?” he asked amusedly once he had taken in the image fully. 

“Yeah. Your idea. You wanted to honor the past parts of me too,” she told him. 

“I’m surprised we didn’t throw Lexi in there,” he chuckled. 

“You actually made that part of my name,” she told him. “When I had to get a ‘new identity’ we couldn’t make me the same as the /real/ Audrey Parker so after I told you about Lexi and everything you told your dad to put my middle name as Alexis.” 

“That makes sense,” he nodded, not having taken his eyes off the picture before turning to the next one and feeling the tears welling up in his eyes again. He was sitting on the hospital bed next to Audrey who was holding baby Lucy. She was leaning partially against him and he had one arm wrapped around her and the baby while two-year-old Si was sitting in his lap and they were all gazing at the baby. “That’s…”

“Yeah. One of my favorite pictures,” Audrey said sadly, tracing her fingers over it. “And only minutes before Si decided to have a tantrum because we were all paying too much attention to the baby,” she couldn’t help but chuckle followed by Duke. 

“How did they get along?” Duke asked curiously. 

“At first, not great. Obviously, given their ages. Si had a habit of stealing her pacifiers and blankets and she would scream bloody murder,” Audrey remembered. “Once they got a little older though, they were a lot better. They still fought like cats and dogs, but that’s just a sibling thing. Or so I was told. But they always loved each other and looked out for each other,” Audrey told him and as they flipped through the next few pages of pictures she told a few stories about their first year. 

Duke noticed that she was pregnant again for Si’s third birthday and then Lucy’s first. “They were pretty close together.”

“The last one was a bit of an accident,” she said amusedly. “Not that we loved him any less of course. But we hadn’t been intending to get pregnant again.” 

“I’m just surprised we found /time/ to get pregnant again with two babies in the house,” Duke laughed. 

“You can blame dad for that one,” she joked. “He always kept them one night a week so we could have some grown-up time…and we didn’t spent it /all/ catching up on sleep.” 

“But clearly didn’t leave the bed anyway,” he quipped. 

“That was definitely one are we never had problems with,” she couldn’t help but retort despite the stab of pain thinking about it caused. 

“Caspian Dylan Crocker,” he read as he turned the page to the third birth picture. “Why those names?” 

“Caspian was for Prince Caspian from Narnia who sailed the seas and Dylan means born of the sea,” she told him. 

“I like it,” he smiled tracing his fingers over his second son’s face before turning to the next family picture. They were on the hospital bed again and this time Si was sitting between Duke and Audrey and Duke had Lucy on his lap while Audrey had the baby. Only a few more page turns later, they got to a picture that made Duke’s eyebrows raise. “I’m chief of police?” 

“Not long after Cas was born, Dad decided that he wanted to retire and be a stay at home grandpa and he passed the chief position off to you and started staying with the kids while we worked.” 

“I would have expected him to give it to you,” Duke shrugged. 

“I wasn’t his son,” she chuckled. “The position had been passed father to son for generations. As long as you were an option it was always going to you.” 

“Did it stay that way?” Duke asked curiously, regretting it when she tensed up with a wash of pain. 

“It would have,” she whispered. “But…”

“I’m sorry,” Duke winced, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into a hug. “I wasn’t thinking.” 

“No it’s okay,” she assured him, taking the comfort he offered for a few minutes before trying to change the subject so she turned the page of the album, continuing the stories as she went. 

It wasn’t long before the next picture that startled him. “Cape Rouge?” he asked curiously as he saw himself with his arm around Audrey standing in front of the boat with their three kids in front of them. Eight, six, and five at that point. 

“When we finally got our own boat, you suggested naming her after the one here. Kind of a way to honor how we met. I thought it was a good idea,” she shrugged. 

“It was,” Duke agreed. “We didn’t live on it did we?” he asked. It didn’t look big enough for a family of five. 

“No, we stayed in the house, but we all went out as a family at least one weekend a month and took our vacations on the water. The rest of the weekends you either went out alone to clear your head or the two of us went out together and left the kids with Dad,” she explained. 

“I think it’s time for a lunch break,” Duke realized the time. “Why don’t we head downstairs to eat and then we can finish up after?” She easily agreed and most of their meal was spent with her telling stories about the kids that he was just soaking up. 

Once they were back upstairs, they went back to the album and flipped through kids growing up and as they got older it got easier to see who they looked like. Simon was a good mix of Duke and Audrey, with Duke’s dark hair and Audrey’s blue eyes. Lucy looked mostly like Audrey, but with Duke’s dark hair and brown eyes. Caspian was the only one with Audrey’s blonde hair but other than that he was the spitting image of his grandfather. They went through proms and graduations, Si’s first day on the police force, and then the one that made Duke’s eyebrows raise again. “Is that…” 

“Yeah. That’s Nathan. Si married his daughter Emily. That was the first time I’d really seen him since the first day other than the occasional sighting around town. We were cordial in-laws, but never really became close friends,” Audrey explained. 

The next big event was Caspian’s wedding to Harlan, and Duke was surprised, “He was gay?” When he realized how that sounded, he rushed to correct himself. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, of course.” He just would have expected Audrey to have mentioned it before then, but it hadn’t even dawned on her to do so. She was so used to the idea that it was perfectly normal to her. 

“Yeah. He told us right after he graduated high school. He said later that he wanted to be sure he didn’t get kicked out or disowned too early. When you heard him say that you smacked him in the head,” she chuckled. “Told him that he was an idiot if he thought that we wouldn’t accept him just the way he was.” 

Duke snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like me…How did Dad take it?” he asked worriedly. Clearly he was okay with it by the wedding since he was there and seemed happy enough. 

“You know how it is with the older generation. He didn’t /not/ accept it. He just didn’t really understand. It was tense for a little while until he came to terms with it, but he assured Caspian that he still loved him. Just needed a little while to get comfortable with the idea,” Audrey told him. 

“I guess I can understand that,” Duke said grudgingly. “Long as he didn’t mistreat him or anything.” 

“You said the same thing then. Mostly. You and Dad had a big fight over it at first though, but it blew over soon enough once you realized that he was trying. And then we all sat down and helped him understand.” 

They got through those wedding pictures and then was the birth of their first grandchild. There was the same sort of birth picture with a close up of the baby with the name and birthdate underneath, but the picture next to it was of Si and Emily holding the baby. There were a few more after that with Duke and Audrey with their granddaughter and then one that made Duke’s breath catch. Simon was in a hospital bed, looking very old and frail with IVs coming out of his arms and a nasal canula for oxygen. He was holding the new baby and looking at her so lovingly, despite his condition. Duke noticed a few tears fall from Audrey’s eyes and asked, “Is he…” He couldn’t finish the question, but Audrey knew what he was asking. 

“He died three days after that picture was taken,” she sniffled. “He managed to hold on long enough to meet her. Got to hold his first great grandchild.” 

“We were…there right?” Duke asked hopefully. 

“We were,” Audrey assured him. “We barely left his side those last few days and the kids were in and out.” She hesitated before asking, “Do you want to know what he said…at the end?” 

“Y-yeah. I think I do,” Duke said shakily. He’d never gotten to say goodbye to his father in this world. He needed to know how it happened in that one. 

“He told you that he was /so/ proud of you. He thanked you for being there and for…for giving him such a wonderful legacy. Told you that you were a great father and would be a wonderful grandfather too. Then he…he told me that…that he couldn’t have asked for a better daughter and thanked me for coming into your lives. Said that I…made the family complete. Thanked me for loving you and for letting ‘an old man’ into my heart too. He said that…that he was happy. That he’d had a wonderful life and…not to mourn him too long. Told us to take care of our family and that he loved us all.”

The tears were falling heavy down her cheeks by that point and a few had even fallen from Duke’s eyes. They took a little while before moving on and the next big even was Lucy’s wedding and Audrey told him, “Lucy tried to move up the wedding when Dad got sick. So that he could be there. They just couldn’t make it work.” For the first time she skipped ahead a few pages to show him the picture of the front row of the church where a large portrait of Simon sat beside them. “He’d been gone a month at that point and Lucy insisted that he at least be there that way since he couldn’t be there in person.” 

“That’s a nice gesture. A little morbid, to my taste, but still nice.”

Audrey flipped back to the beginning of the wedding pictures and went through them, telling him about her husband. The tears filled Duke’s eyes again as he saw the picture of himself dancing with his daughter at her wedding, and then him dancing with Audrey the same day. He had been watching all the pictures as they went, looking for some sign of him and Audrey drifting apart. That she was getting tired of him. That they were just going through the motions. He never found it though. They looked just as in love there as they had at the start and she was just as beautiful to him even in her old age, and that threw him more than any of the rest of it. It made him almost think that it could be real. 

The pictures continued through the births of their other grandchildren, and their birthday parties with a few pictures of just Duke and Audrey sprinkled in, and then they got to the last one. The birth of Caspian and Harlan’s second child and then Audrey was crying again. “We were at her christening when it happened. We were sitting in the pew watching the ceremony. You had your arm around me and your head leaning against mine and we were happy…and then I woke up back here,” she finished morosely. “That was the end. The whole life…the whole world…just gone. In the blink of an eye.” 

Duke hugged her tightly with a much better understanding of what she was going through now. Hearing that she’d lived a life there was very different from seeing it unfold. It was more real. Tangible. Not as much as it was for her, of course, since he’d just seen the pictures, but real enough that he knew that he could never imagine how she must be feeling. It was hard enough for him. “Can I…maybe…have copies of the pictures? At least some of them?” He still had the picture of Jean that Audrey had sent him after she’d been born a few years ago and he wanted pictures of these kids too. More children of his that he would never meet but would never forget. 

“Yeah…okay…I’ll have copies made. Not sure when, but…” 

“It’s okay. There’s no rush,” he told her. He took a deep breath to steady himself for what he knew he needed to say. Even more so now that he understood better. “I’m sorry, Audrey. I didn’t even…comprehend the scope of what you must have been feeling. I made everything about me and didn’t even consider anything else and I…”

“If you need to hear it, I forgive you, Duke. And I’m sorry I lost my temper like that yesterday too,” she returned. 

“You had every right to lose your temper. I was being an ass,” Duke huffed, angry at himself for it. 

“You had just found out that I’d spent forty one years married to another version of you. It’s completely understandable that it threw you off your game,” she gave a watery chuckle. 

“Thank you. For sharing all this with me,” Duke told her. “I’m…not really sure where we go from here, but at the very least, I promise to be a better friend.”

“That’s all I can ask for. Thank you, Duke,” she said leaning up to kiss his cheek. 

“You ready to go have some dinner?” Duke suggested. They’d been going through the pictures all day. 

“Yeah. And then after…I think I want to be alone for a little while. And I know you probably need to process and all,” she said hesitantly. 

“Yeah. That sounds like a plan,” Duke agreed. He could tell that she had overdone the whole sharing thing and was too emotionally wrung out for more, not that he was much better, so conversation over dinner stayed light with no mention of the other world. “If you need anything, even just a shoulder…you know where I am,” Duke told her before he headed back to his boat. 

“I know. Thanks Duke,” she gave him a shaky smile before heading back upstairs and sitting on her balcony with another glass of bourbon and her legs tucked underneath her. They’d been inside all day and she needed some fresh air. The few glances she’d taken towards the Rouge told her that Duke apparently had the same idea, but mostly her eyes stayed on the horizon as she lost herself in the memories of a home that didn’t exist anymore. 

Duke went back to his boat and sat down on the deck to meditate on everything he’d learned. Coming to terms with the fact that he’d lived such a perfect cookie-cutter life in another world was difficult. On one hand, he’d never been a fan of the whole idea of perfect normalcy, but on the other…part of him was still the little boy that had wanted nothing more than for someone to love him. To live a love surrounded by love and family and people he could count on. He’d never been able to count on anyone before. 

He was still having trouble understanding how Audrey could consider him the same person as that guy and tried to dig deeper and see if he could figure out what it was she saw and it was a long time before he figured it out. He could easily see himself turning out that way with a stable life and good role models growing up, but he hadn’t had those things. How could they be the same? He thought back on the stories she told and tried to look beneath the surface like she’d said and finally saw it. He thought back to the more relaxed candid pictures and tried to forget about the posed ones and saw even more. 

What did that mean though? That was the big question. Even if they had been the same person to start with, they weren’t by the end. The person he was now had never had children or grandchildren. He wasn’t the same person that Audrey had spent over forty years with and he /couldn’t/ be that person. He didn’t think he could live with being a replacement of that person either. But then, it didn’t seem like Audrey wanted that. Sure she seemed to struggle at a few points not to treat him like her husband, but that was understandable. She’d even said that she didn’t know what they could have which meant that she wasn’t just chasing a fantasy. That did make him feel better. Maybe…if they did end up going anywhere…it meant that she could see him for who he was.

That was also the problem too, though. Even if it was just the surface as she’d said, it still made a difference. She had married a cop. He was a criminal. He couldn’t give her that same lifestyle. The life that she wanted. That made her so happy. He couldn’t give her stability. Even if he /wanted/ to change his entire life and get out of the illegal stuff, it wasn’t that easy to just walk away. It would make thing more than a little complicated which was at least part of the reason that he’d been so hesitant to give into his feelings for her from the start.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Monday, when Audrey went to work, Nathan wouldn’t even look at her and she felt horrible. A look at the files told her why he was there late Saturday afternoon. There had been a case and he was coming to get her, only to hear that. And he’d apparently solved the case himself. “Nathan, can we talk?” 

“Nothing to talk about,” he replied gruffly. 

“Please just hear me out…”

“Heard everything I needed to hear the other night,” he said tightly. 

“No. I don’t think you did,” she sighed sadly. “I just…I don’t want you to think that I never wanted you…”

“That’s what it sounded like to me,” he said in irritation. 

“I know. Which is why I want to correct that. It wouldn’t have mattered what anyone else wanted if I hadn’t loved you enough to try and make it work. And maybe it could have worked, but…”

“But you got to go to a whole different world to be with the one you really wanted. I get it,” Nathan said through grit teeth. 

“That’s not how it happened,” she tried to protest. 

“Did you even bother to look me up at all there?” he asked bitterly. 

“Yes, actually. As soon as I got there. I mean, yeah, Duke was the first person I met, but that was more due to chance. He happened to be driving down the road where I got stranded and picked me up. He was going to help me find you and then I did. You were a completely different person. You were a doctor. You had a wife and a daughter. Was I supposed to try and mess that up?” 

Nathan calmed slightly at that. “No. I guess not. But that doesn’t change what happened here. And I don’t mean since you got back…what happened in Colorado?”

“First, let me point out that we weren’t together then,” she said pointedly. She wasn’t going to deny him an answer, but she wanted that out on the table. “And what happened was that Duke and I kissed. Then he stopped. And that was it. I didn’t think it meant anything to him, so I never bothered mentioning it. To /anyone/.” 

“Did you kiss him or did he kiss you?” Nathan asked, despite not really wanting the answer. He just needed to know. 

“I kissed him,” she told him. “And then as I know now, he was trying to be a good friend by passing for your sake.”

Nathan sighed heavily. “Look, I get it okay. Everything got all screwed up and it’s not really anyone’s fault. But it still hurts. And I just can’t…”

“Okay,” she said seriously when he trailed off. “I get that. And I’m not asking you to get over it. I just didn’t want you to think that none of it was real. That’s all.” 

Nathan nodded and just turned back to his work, so she went to sit down and do the same. It wasn’t long though before they got a call about people dropping dead all over town for no apparent reason and Audrey sighed at the thought of yet another stupid trouble to deal with. They were just starting to figure it out when William walked up bold as brass, and Audrey immediately drew her gun. “Whoa, easy,” he said amusedly. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Give me one good reason why not?” she snapped. 

“Oh right…you don’t know,” he smirked. “We’re linked, you and I,” William told her. 

“Linked how?” Nathan asked suspiciously. 

“Allow me to demonstrate,” William said as he pulled a knife from his pocket. When he pulled a shallow cut across his arm, Audrey hissed in pain and rolled up her sleeve to see an identical cut. “You see? Whatever happens to me, also happens to you. Let me tell you, that little head wound you got last week…that was annoying. I did heal us as quickly as I could though.” 

“What do you want?” Audrey growled. 

“To talk. Just you and me, no offense big guy,” he addressed the last part smugly to Nathan. “What do you say? Take a walk with me? And I’ll tell you all about this little trouble you’re chasing.”

“Fine,” she huffed as she followed him off. Learning that her original self caused the troubles hit her hard, but beneath the horrified denial, it made a certain amount of sense. What Howard had said about her punishment. Why she was always the one to come back to help. Why she was immune even. When he told her that she was going to create a trouble to fix this one, she outright refused. He welcomed her to try another way and told her where to find him when she realized that there wasn’t one and then walked away and she was powerless to stop it. 

She called Duke and Nathan to meet her at the baby’s house. If anyone could help her find a way to fix it they could, but no matter what they tried, nothing worked. She took a walk from frustration and Duke came after her. She heard him come up and she sighed. “The point we’re at right now, I have the option to either give someone a trouble like William wants or kill the baby. And I am /not/ going to hurt that baby.” 

“No you’re not,” Ben said as he walked up with the baby. He turned to Duke. “You’re going to hurt me.” When Duke just looked at him blankly he said, “I know about the Crocker curse. Kill me.” 

Audrey knew that Duke didn’t have his curse anymore so this idea clearly wouldn’t work even if she /was/ okay with it which she wasn’t. “Okay, listen, Ben that’s really noble of you, but…”

“Ben,” Duke said softly, cutting her off and he looked directly into the young father’s eyes. “You sure about that?” He knew what he would do to save his children from his curse and if this man was truly willing to do the same, then he would accept that. 

“Sure that I want to leave my son without any parents? No. But I don’t know another way.” Ben took a deep breath before saying, “I’m sure she didn’t tell you, but Gloria considered the Crocker family curse a great blessing.”

“Why?” Duke asked confused. 

“Cured her family of the troubles. One of your ancestors killed one of hers. I want to take this trouble to the grave,” he said confidently. 

“Alright,” Duke agreed, getting an incredulous look from Audrey. “Take the baby up to the house. We’ll meet you there as soon as we can.”

“Are you serious?!” Audrey asked incredulously once they were alone. “You want me to retrouble you? Give you the Crocker family curse so you can kill that baby’s father? No, we’ve been down that road before.”

“Hey, I don’t like it either, but he is volunteering,” Duke pointed out. “And so am I.”

“Duke…” she shook her head. 

“Listen, you know me. You know my curse. I’m not a wildcard here like anyone else you could trouble.”

“No,” Audrey said firmly. “There is not a chance in /hell/ that I put this back on you. Not even if it means the rest of the town died. I won’t do it.”

“There isn’t a choice Audrey,” he tried to reason. 

“Yes. There is. I’m going to go see William. /Make/ him undo what he’s done. I’m going to end this,” she said seriously as she turned to walk away. 

“Audrey…wait! How are you…damnit!” he called after her and cursed as she drove off. He went to grab Nathan to follow her. It might just take both of them to watch her back with what she was about to walk into. 

Audrey drove up to the lookout and walked over to William. She’d been doing some thinking ever since their first conversation and she had a theory. If she was right, it could end the troubles for good. “You’re going to undo the trouble on that baby. Whatever tweak you made, untweak it,” she ordered. 

“Let me think…no,” William smirked. “If you want something done you’re going to have to do it yourself.” 

Nathan held Duke back when he tried to head after Audrey and William. “Just wait,” he whispered low enough that they couldn’t hear him. “Give her a chance.” Duke shifted uncomfortably, but did just that, hiding in the trees, close enough to hear, but not be seen. 

Audrey pulled her gun and pointed it at Williams head. “And if I kill you, will that undo it?” she asked coldly. There had to be a reason that so many Crockers had been trying to kill her. Maybe they knew something no one else did. 

“You’re bluffing,” William laughed. “And a pretty poor one too, if I may say. If you kill me, you kill yourself remember?” 

“And maybe I don’t care,” Audrey said sincerely. 

“Of course, you care,” William huffed in disbelief. 

Nathan held Duke back again. “She’s bluffing, Duke. If you go out there it will take away her leverage.” 

“No. I really don’t,” Audrey scoffed. “I’ve lost /everything/ thanks to the troubles. I don’t have anything left to live for except stopping them.”

“And what makes you think that killing us will work?” William asked, trying to keep her from seeing his nervousness. If she really was telling the truth. 

“I don’t know. But I /do/ know that it will stop you making them worse in the meantime,” she smirked herself, having seen the truth in his eyes when he mentioned it. At least she was pretty sure. Sure enough that she could take the chance. If she was right, the troubles would be over and everyone would be free. Duke would be free to be with Jennifer. To let himself have a family and a future. To find happiness. And she could finally find peace. 

Duke /did/ shrug Nathan off this time. He was now certain that she wasn’t bluffing. She was actually going to do this and he had to stop her. “Audrey, NO!” he called just as the gun went off and both she and William fell to the ground. He felt frantically for a pulse and didn’t find one and realized that she wasn’t breathing either. “Duke…” Nathan said apologetically as he came up. 

“She’s bluffing?!” Duke asked incredulously as he started CPR. He was absolutely not giving up on her. Not for anything. She didn’t have the same bullet wound at least so there was a chance. However slim. 

“I didn’t think she would…”

“Or you just didn’t care,” Duke snapped, pausing to breathe into her mouth. 

“You really think I would…” Nathan asked appalled only to stop short when he realized that he could feel again. “My trouble’s gone.” 

“Good for you,” Duke snarled sarcastically as he returned to chest compressions. 

“Duke, stop,” Nathan put a hand on his shoulder to pull him back. “If her death really ended the troubles, what’s going to happen if you bring her back?” He had made that mistake before. Trying to save her from the barn. 

Duke spun around and punched Nathan hard enough to break his nose. “At least now I know you could feel that,” Duke snapped, quickly returning to the CPR. 

Nathan was just getting back up off the ground when Audrey sucked in a sharp breath and started to sit up. “D-Duke?” she asked confused. “How did…what did…” she was cut off by his lips on hers and suddenly she didn’t care anymore. She had been so afraid that it wouldn’t be the same with this Duke, but she knew now that she was wrong. No matter how old he was or what he knew or remembered, he was still Duke and her heart knew that even if her head hadn’t realized and she was kissing him back desperately. 

Duke pulled back, holding her forehead against his, neither of them noticing Nathan get up and walk off. “God, Audrey…I thought…” He leaned forward and kissed her again, shorter this time. Just reaffirming that she was alive. He knew now that it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to compete with that other version of him. They were still the same. And they both loved this woman with everything they had and so what if it was complicated. So what if there were past hurts and misunderstandings and so many issues that they might need a bigger boat to hold them all. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was her. “Audrey…please don’t…you /do/ have something to live for. I mean…I know that your old life is gone and if I could bring it back for you I would do it in a heartbeat, but…I know it won’t be the same, but we can make new memories. Start over. Build a whole new life…together…If you want.” 

“A-are you sure?” Audrey asked hopefully, one hand sliding through his hair as the other one rubbed over his arm. 

“I’ve been so hung up on stupid crap that I just couldn’t see that the only thing that matters is how I feel about you. I mean, yeah, there are gonna be issues and conversations we need to have and things we need to work out, but I don’t care. We can figure it out. We can do this. If you want.” 

Audrey leaned forward and captured his lips again as her answer before pulling back to say, “I love you, Duke.”

“You love me or…or him?” he couldn’t help but ask. 

“I love /you/. Any version of you in any world at any time,” she whispered. 

“I-I love you too, Audrey,” he whispered back, hugging her tightly to him, burying his face in her neck and running a hand through her hair as he just breathed her in. Reminding himself that she was alive and even more miraculously, she was his. They were gonna be okay. They were gonna work it all out. They would handle it. “I love you,” he said again, a little more confidently. 

She just basked in his arms for a long moment, holding him as tightly as he was her. It didn’t make everything okay. It didn’t make up for the loss of her family. Nothing could. But it was something. Something to live for. Something to hold on to. It was a start. Eventually, she pulled back, and trailed a hand down his cheek. “We should get out of here. Call someone to take care of him,” she gestured at William’s body. “Find out what the fallout of all this is, and then…then we can make a start on figuring things out?”

“That sounds like a plan,” Duke told her with a smile. “We should probably go find Nathan first. Make sure he’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” she asked worriedly. 

“I’m pretty sure I broke his nose,” Duke shrugged sheepishly. 

“Why?” she asked torn between amused and annoyed. 

“He held me back when you were talking to William. Kept saying you were bluffing. And then tried to stop me from saving you,” he explained. 

“Oh,” Audrey said simply, not sure how she felt about that. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions without hearing his reasons though. She took the hand that Duke reached down to help her up with and didn’t let it go. He just smiled and threaded their fingers together as they headed back towards the cars, assuming that Nathan would be there waiting for him. 

Sure enough, there he was, leaning against Audrey’s car with his nose pinched and his head back. “You good, Nate?” Duke asked apologetically. 

“I can still feel it if that’s what you mean,” Nathan grumbled. 

“You mean it worked?” Audrey asked with wide eyes. “The troubles are gone? Why didn’t you say?” she asked Duke. 

“Well for one, all we know for sure is that Nathan’s trouble is gone. For two, I didn’t want to say anything until I knew if it /stayed/ gone when you came back,” he told her. 

“Well it did,” Nathan jumped in, not wanting to get in the middle of an argument between them over that issue, but he still had to ask Duke, “You don’t really think that I /wanted/ her to die do you?” 

Duke sighed. “No, Nathan. I was angry. I know you better than that.” 

“Okay. Good,” Nathan said relieved. 

“We need to take care of William’s body and check and find out if the rest of the troubles are gone,” Audrey said now that was settled. 

“I’ll stay here and take care of the body if you two want to check on the troubles,” Nathan offered. He was relatively certain they were all gone if his was, but checking was still better. 

“Thanks Nathan. Here,” she tossed him her keys. “I’ll have Duke drive me home and just pick up my car from you at the station tomorrow.” 

Duke chuckled as they were already walking back to his truck. “You’ll have me drive you? I don’t even get a courtesy ask?” he teased. 

“Well I assumed you wouldn’t want to be in the doghouse right off the bat, but if you’d rather…” she joked as they got in the truck. 

“I think just driving you would be easier,” he agreed with a laugh.

They checked in on Ben and baby Aaron first and heard the baby cry for themselves, waiting for a few minutes to make sure there were no reports of bodies dropping before they assured them that it was over and that the troubles were probably gone for good, but they still had to confirm. Two more calls, one to Dwight and one to Vince had them checking in with the rest of the troubled people they knew, and then they were headed home. 

Once they got there, Duke led them into the Gull first for dinner. It had been a very long day and he was relatively sure that neither of them had eaten yet. Once they were sitting down and had ordered, Duke started the conversation. “I think we should probably talk about Colorado first. Now that we’re not yelling about it, I mean,” he chuckled. 

“Yeah. Might as well start from the beginning,” she agreed. 

“You need to know that I heard everything you said, and thought about it. And I get where you would have gotten the ideas you did, but…I would first like to point out…you were drunk.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she shook her head. “I was buzzed, yeah. Uninhibited. That’s what gave me the courage to do what I’d been wanting to do for a long time.” 

“Well I couldn’t tell just how drunk you were and the last thing I wanted to do was risk taking advantage of you,” Duke told her. “That was at least part of my hesitation. And you already know the rest. And second…I know you may have /thought/ that you were being clear with your whole comment about screwing up our friendship and everything, but…you really weren’t. I had no idea what you were saying so decided the best course of action was to keep my mouth shut before /I/ risked screwing up our friendship.” 

“Okay. I guess I get that. I could have been clearer,” Audrey admitted, and there was a pause as their food arrived. 

“As far as me pushing you towards Nathan…I never meant to push you into something you didn’t want. It was just…when we got back and Nathan was dead…I heard you say you loved him, so…I was trying to make you happy. That was all I really wanted.” 

“Just like all I really wanted was for you to be happy,” she smiled. “And yeah. I know I’m not perfect. I was feeling hurt and rejected and then seeing Nathan dead like that…I’m not sure why that came out, and it wasn’t actually /not/ true, but it wasn’t…I mean…” She huffed as she tried to find the words. “I did love him, but not like…not like I loved you, you know? I loved him enough to give it a shot, but…”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying,” Duke nodded. “And clearly, we need to work on our communication,” he chuckled. 

“No kidding,” she deadpanned. 

“Another kinda important thing we should discuss is the fact that I’m a criminal. You’re a cop. There’s gonna be a lot more complications here than you’re used to with that other me,” he pointed out. 

“I don’t care,” she shook her head. “I didn’t care before and I care even less now.” 

“Then we should probably figure out how we’re going to work things,” Duke said relieved that she wasn’t asking him to change. 

“Simple. I’ll quit being a cop,” she shrugged. 

Duke frowned. “I can’t ask you to do that. I don’t want you to change who you are any more than I want to change who I am.”

“I’m not just doing it for you or even for /us/. Look, I’ve lived an entire lifetime as a cop. I was already thinking about retiring in that world. We both were. I want to do something different. And now that the troubles are over, I’m not /needed/ as a cop, so I can be free to be whatever I want,” she explained. 

“What were you thinking of doing?” Duke asked curiously. 

“Well…I’ve been on one side of the law. Might as well give the other one a try,” she chuckled. “Assuming you don’t mind a partner that is.” 

“A partner with all the knowledge of the FBI and law enforcement? Do I look stupid enough to turn that down?” he joked as they finished their food and headed upstairs. “Are you sure though? I mean there are plenty of other things you can do if you don’t want to stay a cop.”

“I can’t promise I’ll stick with it, but it might be fun,” Audrey shrugged. 

“And even if you don’t stick with it, I’m sure I can trust you to keep my secrets anyway,” Duke decided. “But I’m not giving you any incriminating information until you’re completely severed from law enforcement. Not because I don’t trust you, but because I don’t want to put you in a compromising position.”

“I understand completely and agree with you. I may be switching sides, but dirty cop is a line I don’t plan to cross. Even temporarily,” Audrey nodded before something else dawned on her. She reached over and twisted her rings on her hand for a minute before pulling them off, forcing the pain back. “I should probably give these back to you. At least for now.” She hoped just for now anyway. 

Duke closed his hand around them as she put them there and he took a few deep breaths as he considered his options before shaking his head. “No, you keep this one,” he said giving her the engagement ring back. I mean, I can’t say that I’m anywhere near ready to start planning a wedding or anything, but we both know that it’s going to end up back on your finger sooner or later anyway, so I’m not gonna take it away from you.”

“A-are you sure?” she asked hopefully. 

“No…but yes.” 

“I don’t think you understand the rules of this game,” she grinned, remembering the first conversation they had after she got back when he was trying to figure out what had happened. “You have to choose one.”

“Yes then,” he laughed, sliding the ring back on her finger. “And as for this one…” he considered for a moment. “You keep it. Put it on a chain or something or put it away. Whatever you want to do with you. When we /do/ get there, we’ll get new ones okay?” 

“Yeah. Okay,” she agreed. “That’d probably be best anyway.” She set her wedding ring on the table. She would get a chain for it later. “Something else I was thinking of, are you wanting to stay in Haven now that the troubles are gone or move on somewhere else?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it yet,” Duke shrugged. “What do /you/ want?” 

“I don’t know,” she shrugged back at him leaning against his side and his arms wrapped comfortably around her. “I mean, on one hand this is my home, but on the other, it’s also so much of a reminder of everything I lost. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m okay either way, so whatever you want to do.”

“Then we’ll just figure it out as we go then. If we’re planning to go into business there will be a lot of travelling anyway, so we can just use Haven as a home base until or unless one of us decides we don’t want to anymore.” 

“But what about the Gull? I mean, you have interests here now,” she pointed out. 

“I can hire people to run the Gull for me. Hell, I hardly have anything to do with it now anyway,” he chuckled. “Or I can sell it, but I do like the idea of having at least one legitimate business.” 

“Yeah, it could definitely come in handy,” Audrey agreed. “Anything else we need to figure out?” 

“Just one thing,” Duke smirked at her before pulling her into a passionate kiss. And this time neither of them were stopping for anything. 

Audrey did end up making a copy of her photos, but didn’t give them to Duke since she moved into the Cape Rouge so they only needed one copy. The other copy Duke actually put into a secret, fire and waterproof lockbox that he kept his most important items in. That way if something happened to the first one, they still had copies. They spent a lot of time looking at them together as Audrey slowly came to terms with her losses. The new life she was building did help as did the constant support and understanding of Duke. 

Nathan didn’t balk at her notice when she turned it in. While they weren’t antagonistic at all, there was a little too much hurt and discomfort there for them to be able to work together well effectively. Especially as partners where they had to be able to watch their backs. Once she had worked out her final two weeks and turned in her gun and badge, Duke got her outfitted with new, not so legal guns and showed her how to find all his secret stashes of them. He also taught her all the other secrets of the boat and how to run it. The last part was relatively easy for her, having had so much experience with boats in general by then, plus knowing how he thought well enough to pick up how he had things rigged. 

Once she had the basics down, they took their first job as partners. Just a simple delivery to get her feet wet and they were gone for a little over a week. Audrey knew that she didn’t need to define the lines that she wouldn’t cross because Duke had the same lines. No hurting innocents, and only hurting the guilty when there was no other choice. She decided that she kinda liked the thrill of it and as long as they weren’t hurting anybody, it was actually fun. By the time a year had passed, they were planning a wedding. 

A little time and distance had repaired their relationship with Nathan who served as Duke’s best man and Audrey asked Jennifer to be her maid of honor since they’d gotten relatively close since everything was settled with her and Duke, and especially since she and Nathan had gotten together in a strange twist of irony. Just like last time, it was a small ceremony followed by something that was more party than reception. The only thing they really scheduled for the even was their first dance which, this time, was to the song Broken Road. 

Their first child was born a little over a year later. A girl. One that was /not/ named Lucy Sarah. Neither of them wanted anything to do with naming their new children after their old ones. They wouldn’t be the same people and were absolutely /not/ replacements. They did still end up with two boys and a girl though since Audrey’s next pregnancy gave them identical twin boys. All three of the kids were raised on the Cape Rouge which stayed in dock in Haven during the school year and there were only a few times an urgent job came up during those times necessitating Audrey and the kids staying in the inn while Duke made the run alone. 

Forty years later, the Cape Rouge was adrift in the middle of the Pacific, both of it’s occupants dead. Audrey had gone first. A heart attack in her sleep. Waking up to find her gone was all it took to set off a massive stroke for Duke and they died in each other’s arms after a long and happy life and were survived by their three children and eight grandchildren.


End file.
